Late last week we were finally able to start installing our hardwood floors at the new house. It’s going well (we’re getting it done with our own four hands), but it’s proving to be a time intensive project – which is not necessarily the type of project you want to take on when you’re short on time (we’re scheduled to move in this weekend and would like to be completely done with four bedrooms and a long hallway by then – egads!). So once we’re breathing a bit easier and a bit further along, we’ll write up a play-by-play of how it all (literally) is going down. ‘Til then, enjoy this still-dusty pic of the first room we have officially completed: our master (well, we still have to get the baseboards and quarter round in).
As much as our timeline has me sweating bullets, it’s nothing compared to the Cathy-comic style perspiration that I was feeling during the first step of this project: just getting the dang wood home. Allow me to paint sketch you a picture. Lumber Liquidators called me to say my order was in and ready for pick up. Clara was napping so Sherry stayed home with her and I ran off to rent the $19 truck from Lowe’s or Home Depot that they suggested to pick up our lumber (it was a pretty huge order that definitely wouldn’t fit in our car – and renting a truck from blue or orange was cheaper than LL’s delivery service, so they recommended that). Off I went to Lowe’s, where I purchased all of my quarter-round molding for the four bedrooms and the hallway we were tackling (Lowe’s doesn’t let you rent their truck unless you’re making a purchase, but since I needed that stuff anyway it worked out well). Then I headed down the street to Lumber Liquidators.
Now, I knew my order would be bigger than our kitchen’s cork floor (which I was just barely able to fit in our Altima, btw) but I was still a bit shocked when I saw the massive stack of boxes being trucked out on a forklift. Was that really all ours? Gulp. It made me very glad I had rented the truck….
…that is, until they started to lower the load onto the truck bed and I noticed one of the tires was squishing down a little more than the other three from the added weight. It definitely wasn’t flat, it was just a little lower than the others on air. Which was enough to turn me into a Nervous Nelly (not to be confused with regular Nelly). But the Lumber Liquidator guys were great and forklifted my materials in a way that seemed to take the brunt of the weight off that tire – and we all agreed it looked okay enough to take it slow and drive the three short miles down the road to the new house.
Well, it turned out to be one of the longest 3 mile drives of my life. First of all, the load proved to be pretty unbalanced. Between my worries about the tire and the fact that the boxes of flooring were stacked pretty high (and not strapped together as tightly as they initially appeared to be), every time I turned I could see the boxes lean one way or the other. And this was despite taking turns at like five miles per hour with my hazards on in the right lane.
After a few turns I got a sense of how to shift the load back to an even-ish center, which thankfully squelched the visions that I had of myself in an overturned Lowe’s truck watching my new hardwood floor boards get strewn across the road and crushed by oncoming traffic. And since there were just a handful of turns between me and home, I figured it would be smooth (albeit slow) sailing the rest of the way.
Then it started to rain.
In all of my stress about the unbalanced load, I failed to notice the storm clouds that had rolled in without any warning. Awesome. It wasn’t just a drizzle, it was a sudden downpour… and I had dozens of boxes of hardwood floors being protected by nothing but cardboard in my truck bed. Hello blood pressure spike!
Luckily a previous occupant of the Lowe’s truck had left a large plastic drop cloth in the truck bed (something finally went my way!) so I was able to pull off onto a side street and cover everything before it got too wet. Of course it took me a few more death-defying turns to get off and back on the main road, but crisis mostly averted.
No more than one stoplight later, the rain stopped. Stupid thunderstorm. But it was still a bit windy, so my hasty cover job with the drop cloth was now coming back to haunt me and the plastic was starting to flap loose from the truck bed. Cue a few more turns to stop and remove the drop cloth completely.
I had barely made it a mile from Lumber Liquidators at this point.
My pounding heart was probably visible through my rain-soaked shirt, but fortunately my next two miles were far less eventful. I soon arrived to the new house, a few hairs grayer but with my hardwoods and truck perfectly upright and intact.
Then it hit me that I had to unload the darn thing. I had completely failed to think about this step in the process. I was alone. Sherry was still with Clara at home – where it never even rained (cue me screaming “What?! Was the cloud just over my truck?! Am I Eeyore?!”). Clearly I didn’t have a forklift at my disposal, so I sucked it up and started wrestling the boxes one by one off the truck and into the house. All 50 of them…
I think it took me a good hour to get them all unloaded. They were heavy (56 pounds each, I later learned), unwieldy (each one is about five feet long), and they all had to come down from the truck bed, up a few stairs and through a narrow doorway in the garage, before I could stack them in the dining room to acclimate before installation. There was no way in heck I had the energy to take them all upstairs at that point, so that would have to wait for another day. Between nearly giving myself a panic attack driving them home and then hauling 2,800 pounds of wood inside (seriously, I did the math) I figured I earned that much.
That was Clara enjoying the new flooring the day after it arrived. Here’s hoping she enjoys it as much once its out of the box and laid across her floor – because that’s what we’re working on today. Woot!
mribaro says
Watching the last photo of Clara dancing on hardwoods, I’ve been thinking your dining room built-ins could be your ceramic animals cabinets, just like in your current (for a few more days) dining room. Just remove the ornate top and the glass doors, paint it white and paint the background a color you like.
Also, I’d like to add, seeing John’s hilarious good-sport-about-it-all sketches made me as delighted as when Sherry started including floorplan sketches with her moodboards :) Something to be repeated for sure, the grateful audience is here :)
YoungHouseLove says
Aw thanks Mribaro!
xo
s
Jes says
Loved this post! I have a very similar (and hilarious) story from my childhood, that involved a HUGE piece of mdf strapped to the roof racks on our 4wd (it was slightly wider and longer than the car’s roof). I guess mum/dad didn’t realise that it would act as a giant “wing” and flap and and pull the car all over the place in you were going more than like 5km/h. So yes, we drove home (all 10km of it) at 5km/h. We had out hands out the window trying to hold the front of it down. At one stage my brother and I got out and walked alongside the car, holding it down. It was very very very funny.
Also, you guys are saints for dealing with the haters. Is it just me, or are there more of them lately? You cop flack for not revealing the new house earlier and people are thinking that you have been “secretly” working on it, then you cop flack because people don’t agree with your prioritisation of tasks? You guys are real people like the rest of us and only have 24hrs in a day. You are doing what you think is right for YOUR lives! 100% agree with your “mental health” choice.
Love you guys!
YoungHouseLove says
Aw thanks Jes!
xo
s
Laura says
oh Jeepers!!!! What an ordeal.
You earned a cold one John!!!!
Floor looks AWESOME FTW!!!
Laura says
PS – I’m from the other side of Australia where we have redwood floors (Jarrah) so I know floors :)
=From London says
You guys are either crazy or complete geniuses! I does look amazing though, and congratulations!
N Shirley says
I for one would be content with filler posts or fewer posts so you can get in your new space! Best wishes!
Lee says
HOLY COW! That’s a lotta flooring to go down by this w/e.
You guys are gluttons for punishment for sure! Good Luck! I admire your youth and energy :)
I’m 60 and today my daughter and I are yanking carpet from a big hallway. Thanks for the inspiration i almost went back to bed lol.
love u guys!
Kim says
Hilarious cartoons! Thanks for the morning pick-me-up :)
Saskia says
Haha i love the story! It reminds me at our effort. We had ordered 40 of those boxes and was told they would deliver for free! At first we where so pleased with this kind of luck, but it turned out, that when they mean “we drop it off”, this is literally what they do! We live in Belgium, where the streets are extremly narrow ( and busy) so imagine me standing looking on in horror at our boxes, nicely lifted of the truck onto the road! I was on my own ( husband at work as i thought the drop off was an easy one (wo)man job :) and on both sides of the road more and more cars honking and teaching me some lovely new flemish words :) finnally some neighbours took pitty and slowly we got the boxes inside and the trafic jam that had now reached a lenght that could have been reported on the news could slowely resolve :).
YoungHouseLove says
Oh my gosh that sounds intense Saskia! So glad the neighbors lent you a hand!
xo
s
stephanie m. says
I read here frequently but rarely comment; I had to say this was the funniest post I’ve read in a while! I love the new house and can’t wait to see what y’all do with it!
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks Stephanie!
-John
Geri says
Best of luck with the move! Thanks for keeping us updated and the floor already looks fab! You are machines!!!! Go team S &J! Love the drawings – inspired by the blog ‘crappy pictures’ am guessing! You should do a should out for the inspiration – I love that blog almost as much as yours. xo
YoungHouseLove says
I think John took inspiration from Roo at Neon Fresh (her illustrations crack us up) and himself (dude loves to draw unfortunate events). Ever since he sketched me this mock-up of a disaster back in 2011, I’ve been more in love with him than ever!
xo
s
Geri says
Oh THANK you for the reminder about Neon Fresh! I had forgotten that blog – love it! Best of luck with moving xo
Liz says
Woot! Looks so good so far! By the way, those illustrations were hilarious. I loved seeing the expressions change on each picture – happy, to annoyed, to angry! I’m impressed that you two are doing this all yourselves, and I can’t wait to see the finished result :)
gail says
I am going to nickname you Morton. (When it rains, it pours!) Although I truly admire your tenacity, and feel bad for what you went through, I hope you realize that you have made thousands of readers a bit happier and more confident in their own abilities. Not because you had so much trouble, but because we have all had experiences similar to yours, and we have just had some assurance that Murphy visits others also.
He visits our house quite frequently. Once we installed a towel rod and couldn’t believe how easy it was to do. Later we heard that my cousin, that very same afternoon, had damaged her car by riding over a curb as she turned a corner. That expained it: Murphy had been with her that afternoon. Murphy’s Law gets us all some time or other.
YoungHouseLove says
Oh man! Murphy does get around!
xo
s
Chrissy says
Hey guys! I’m so excited to follow this new journey with you as I recently purchased and started renovating a house of my own! Anyway, I have a question–and I hope this isn’t one you’ve answered before (apologies in advance)–have you ever done an ROI on the two houses you’ve sold? If so, is that something you could share with us? I’m so curious to see how much bang to your buck DIYing gets you. Thanks! – Chrissy
YoungHouseLove says
Oh yes, we did a post about if we made a profit selling our first house here, and plan to do another one for our current house after we’re all moved out :)
xo
s
Susan says
Good story, although only in retrospect! Are you going to ask for some money back on the truck rental since basically, it had a flat tire?
YoungHouseLove says
It was only $19 and the hardwoods made it home, so John didn’t ask for any money back. He did warn them so they could fix it for the next person though :)
xo
s
ashley @ sunnysideshlee.com says
OMG NIGHTMARE! I hope your muscles are recovering from that heavy lifting! Can’t wait to see the finished floors tho and I’m sure you guys are itching to be done with them too! :)
Cristina S. says
We had a similar experience two years ago when we tiled the first floor of our home. We had ordered 32 inch. (Yes, 32) tile to give our Miami home the ultimate modern look. My dad has a dodge ram so we figured we would borrow his truck. The warehouse turned out to be about 30 miles away but that was the least of our problems. We actually had to make 3 rounds of pick ups!!! When they started loading the order the truck started coming down. The nice workers built a weight stabilizing/equaling bed out of pallets but still weren’t able to load too much. Each box of tile contained THREE tiles (whomp, whomp) & weighed nearly 100 lbs A box!!! We also had to carefully unload each box from the truck bed and into our house. Can you say FOREVER?!? Plus it was a gorgeously HOT miami day! That doesn’t even touch the surface of the miracle of tiling your home with 30+ lb tile. NEVER, EVER AGAIN. Glad John is safe :)
PS our floors are the house upgrade people always notice first and completely transformed our builder-grade floors so it was worth it (NOW)!
Dayna says
Hahaha, love the cartoons! I’m sure it was painful at the time, but it made a great story :)Maybe next time you could make two trips since its so close to home?
Kara says
The sketch where the tarp is coming off kills me, I love the look on John’s face. Thanks for the laughs!!
Steph says
Oh my goodness, can you please do more posts with reenactment drawings?! This was one of the funniest posts ever! My favorite was the one of the tarp flapping in the wind haha also, very impressive that John unloaded all of that flooring on his own! Can’t wait to see it all finished :)
mary says
oh my goodness! Your telling of the story was hysterical. Love the look on “your” face in the last sketch. Thanks for the laugh!
Bailey says
Oh my goodness, WHAT an adventure! Seriously, I was on the edge of my seat ;) Glad everything worked out ok in the end – plus you got a workout!
xox
Bailey
http://akabailey.blogspot.com
Gabbi @ Retro Ranch Reno says
Oh. My. Goodness. I feel so bad for you John!!! Although, I laughed the whole way through the post because of your super awesome drawings. Seriously, I was cracking up.
Glad everything ended on a good note though!! :)
Jessie says
Ok, I was a few posts behind so I was just skimming this one, looking at the drawings: flat tire-“poor John,” rain-“poor John,” fire-“fire?! How did that happen?!” Just plastic blowing. Phewph! I was going to say, what a HORRIBLE day?! The floor looks wonderful!
YoungHouseLove says
Hahah!
xo
s
Lana says
I know you guys are super thrifty, but this is a situation where hiring a day laborer would be a great idea! There are a lot of guys out of a job who would love a few hours of work for 15 an hour +lunch. I hire a really nice guy who lost his job recently and somehow he feeds his kids doing odd gardening and handyman jobs around town. Are you opposed to hiring people to help with the heavy labor, or did you just not think of it?
YoungHouseLove says
That’s so nice! We definitely hire things out when we can’t swing them ourselves (either for time reasons or for skill reasons, hah!) so we definitely would consider that if we can’t get things wrapped up as quickly as we hope :)
xo
s
Kristin says
Great post! Quick question – in the pictures of your bedroom, with the trim and floor complete, it looks like the floor trim is gone/a different color…did you guys remove it after you painted it to do the floors? Is it covered up? My husband and I are going through the same process with our new house and were curious about the trim in these pictures! Thanks so much!
YoungHouseLove says
Oh yes we ended up having to pop up the baseboards to lay the floors, but since we sprayed them in place they just needed a few touch ups when we nailed them back in. Not too bad :)
We’ll share all of the floor laying details with you in a post that we’re working on for tomorrow. Hope it helps!
xo
s
Kelly says
Curious why you are installing quarter round if the floors are being installed before the trim? If you take the floors almost to the walls, there’s no need for the quarter round.
YoungHouseLove says
Our flooring requires a 3/4″ space on all sides between it and the walls for expansion and contraction, and our baseboard isn’t thick enough so we need quarter-round to bridge the gap. If we install the flooring closer to the wall, it voids the warranty, so we want to be sure we stick to the instructions :)
xo
s
Charity says
May I ask how dusty it is installing the new hardwood floors? I have a 5 month old and we are considering hiring someone to put in pre-finished wood floors like yours. But I am just wondering how dusty it gets. (Don’t want any respiration issues for our little girl.) How dusty has it been for you? Thanks!!
YoungHouseLove says
So much less dusty than having existing ones refinished! There are some wood shavings from cutting the wood and they get tracked around a bit, but some sweeping or sectioning areas off with plastic drop cloths (you can tape them to doorways to seal things in) would be great! Hope it helps.
xo
s
Charity says
Thank you so much Sherry for giving me the feedback!! That really helps alleviate my new mommy concerns when tackling some home improvement with our little one in the house.
YoungHouseLove says
Sure! Good luck with everything Charity!
xo
s
Pam says
I can totally relate!! We have had so many fun trips moving stuff from Home Depot, Lowes, and other vendors back to the house. I swear it takes a whole day just to purchase stuff and get it home! Thanks for the reminder and for sharing this, it’s nice to know this is just all part of the DIY fun for everyone!
Jan says
You guys are amazing. You are giving me new ideas how to fix up our ranch style home we have lived in for 10yrs my wedding anniversary I want my sunroom and bedroom painted and redone.
I can’t wait to see what paint colors you choose. I am a faithful blog reader. Since the first house you redid.
I was wondering is this the last house? Or will you fix up and flip this one too? I know what ever you decide your fans will be right there with you.
YoungHouseLove says
We can definitely see ourselves settling into our new house for the long haul, but you never know where life will take you (I said our first house was our forever house and look at me now, haha!) so we’ll have to see where we end up! We have tried to get into the new neighborhood for 7 years, so it might take a few wild horses to ever drag us away…
xo
s
Summer says
Oh. My. Goodness.!! So glad things like that don’t only happen to us. ;) Glad all went “well” in the end.
Denise says
I have watched you from day one..you guys are the ultimate, diy’ers! Question, doesn’t look like you painted the walls in new house yet, won’t you be concerned if you drip paint on the new floors??
YoungHouseLove says
We just didn’t have time to get that done before move-in day, but thankfully we’ve painted two house’s worth of walls with wood floors already in place, so we know the drill by now :)
xo
s
jennifer p says
so glad it worked out okay.
Jessica says
So glad sh*t like this doesn’t just happen to me. Love the play by play!! Floors already look amazing btw.
courtney says
I am in constant awe of you all and how much you accomplish with a little one!! Good work! Can’t wait to see what you do with this house!
michelle@decorandthedog says
I’m tired just reading this. Of course, it’s almost bed time. ;) Bet you’ll enjoy that wood floor even more now! Glad it all worked out in the end!
Jessica says
This reminded me of the time that I went to pick up a load of concrete blocks in a U-Haul truck without stopping to consider how much a stack of concrete blocks weighs. I thought for sure that I’d look back after a hill and see the transmission lying in the road. And, I even had friends to help move them. Ugh…that’s a lot of lumber to lug on your own.
Caty says
MOAR COMIX!!
YoungHouseLove says
Haha!
xo
s