Let’s talk about wood, shall we? As we mentioned on Tuesday, we decided to go with solid oak hardwoods for the four bedrooms and the hallway upstairs since many rooms downstairs along with the stairs themselves have a nice medium toned oak already (pretty similar to the hardwoods in our first house that ended up being super dog/kid friendly).
As for where to get it, first we looked on craigslist to see if anyone had a large quantity of something in the right tone/amount (no dice) and then we headed to Lumber Liquidators, since we’ve had luck with them when it came to buying hardwood floors for half of our first house back in 2007 and it’s also where we got the cork flooring for our kitchen in 2011. They always have a ton of selection, and tend to have lots in stock along with all of the underlayment & tools in one place, so they’re pretty much a one stop shop for us now that it’s our third time to the flooring rodeo.
Clara walked right in and made herself comfortable (the girl’s right at home on wood flooring, what can I say?) and we had a look around.
She also had some fun on the tiny set of display stairs. According to the guys who work there every kid who enters the store does that as some sort of unspoken toddler rite of passage.
We ended up grabbing six different samples to hold up against the stairs to see which one would be the best match (we tackled this “sampling phase” right before ripping out all of that nasty upstairs carpeting). Since the sun was setting, we waited until the next morning to take them to the new house so we could judge them in natural light.
We decided to try stripping the carpet off of just the top stair so we could be sure the wood under there was still in good shape (if it was completely damaged we’d have to refinish them, which would mean that we could be less careful about picking a matching wood tone for the upstairs). Thankfully the floor under the runner was in great shape (after we pulled about a hundred staples out by hand) and we loved the medium brown tone (not too yellow, not too dark, not too light). Basically it’s the Goldilocks of hard wood.
For a bit more on why we love not-too-dark-not-too-light-not-too-yellow-not-too-red-toned oak, it’s probably 50% personal preference (some people love it redder or more golden) and 50% practical (if you go too dark with hardwoods we hear that every spec of dust and pet hair can be seen, and if you go too light we’ve heard that wear and tear is also easier to spot since it’s such a light surface). And since we had practically the same tone of oak hardwoods in our first house for years (and it worked well for us – we loved how it looked with our furniture, etc) that ended up swaying us.
Can you tell from this bad iPhone picture of all the samples (sorry!) which one works the best with the stairs?
Yup, it’s the bottom left guy. He was the only one in almost exactly the same color and with the same variety of grain (some dark grain and some light grain). It was also the same thickness (2 1/4″) as the hardwood downstairs. So although we loved some of the wider board options, it felt true to our house and nice and cohesive to go with the one that was the right color, had the right amount of wood grain, and was the same width as the rest of the wood flooring in the house.
It took everything in us not to keep going down each step with the crowbar and the pliers, stripping that stained old carpet as we went. But we knew we had a date with the carpeting upstairs (it’s more important to rip that out and lay the new hardwoods before we move than it is to get it off the stairs, which can be done at any time). In the bad news department, that top step took us about 20 minutes to wrestle free (which means we have about three hours worth of work in our future). But stair runner, you have been warned. We’ll be back.
So after judging those samples in the nice natural light of the morning, we returned to Lumber Liquidators a day after our first trip to officially put in our order. We were armed with the square footage for all of the areas we needed to do, so now that we had picked our Hardwood Bachelor (he accepted our rose and everything), it was pretty straightforward.
Here’s a close up of our winner winner chicken dinner. It’s called Lono Oak and it’s a solid wood floor (it’s not engineered, and it’s 3/4″ thick so it can be refinished many times) and it comes with a 25 year warranty. Most hardwood flooring is in the $4-7-ish range, but LL’s list price was $3.69 per square foot.
Here’s where I smiled sweetly and asked my favorite negotiating question, which is “what’s your best price?” Then you just stand there. Resist the urge to mumble “uh, not that I’m trying to be tough” or “I’m sorry, forget it” Just stand there in silence and wait to see what they say. If they can come down, they’ll tell you. And if they can’t they’ll say they can’t and you can smile and say “just had to ask.” John hates this step, so it’s always my job. And before I threw out my favorite line, I also mentioned how this was our third big order from them so we’re definitely loyal repeat customers.
Boom: 10% off our entire order for those two sentences. So that took the price per square foot down to $3.29 and also scored us 10% off other things we grabbed like a special type of underlayment to work with our subfloor (more on that when we get to the installation process). Speaking of installing it, we’re going to attempt to do it all ourselves, and we better get started soon if we hope to move in 2.5 weeks! Plus we want to paint all of the blue/mauve trim (and maybe even the doors?) while the carpet’s out but before the floor goes down. So… yeah. Tick tock, Petersiks.
Meanwhile Clara was busy spicing up their brochure displays…
We left feeling pretty excited about our big upstairs flooring overhaul. Especially since we asked how much it would cost to hire their guys to install all the flooring and they said it would be around four thousand bucks! So assuming we can do it (knock on hardwood) it’ll definitely add up to some serious money saved.
So our hardwoods are ordered and we have a whole mess of blue trim to paint. We’d like to buy a paint sprayer and try our hand at that, so we’ll keep you posted. Should be interesting…
More Flooring Projects
If you would like to read about other flooring projects we’ve done, please check out the posts below:
We installed hardwoods from LL in our foyer a couple months ago and they look great! Their products are definitely high quality, which is amazing for the price. I’ll have to try that “what’s your best price” line next time we go there…
Installing hardwood flooring is a bear of a project (our foyer took us many, many more hours than I care to admit for only 50 sqft, haha) but I’m sure you guys can handle it. Make sure to rent the pneumatic flooring nailer instead of trying to do it all by hand. We had to do it by hand because the angles of our foyer would have been to small to even use the pneumatic nailer, but for big rooms like you guys have, the nailer would be perfect and cut a LOT of time and effort off the project.
Can’t wait to see your process for installing the floors!
Can you rent a sprayer and see if you like it? My dad has one and I wasn’t crazy about it. BUT, his is OLD. So a newer one will work much better, I’m sure.
As for the floor…love, love, love! The dark color looks so sleek. It also looks great with light, dark or brightly painted walls. Good luck with the installation. I’m sure you guys will have no problem. So get crackin’!! I can’t wait to see the finished product:)
Thanks for the Lumber Liquidators info…we stopped in there a few weeks ago b/c I had never been inside, and I liked what I saw but didn’t know much about the company, reputation, quality, etc., so it’s good to read that this is the third time you’ve used them. How did it work when you hired someone for installation the first two times–did you hire a subcontractor yourselves or use someone they recommended?
We actually just hired someone the first time, so we laid the cork ourselves (it was click and lock though, so we didn’t really do a full installation like hardwoods require). As for our installation the first time with them back in 2007, it was great! We loved it! I think it took them two days to do three rooms and a hallway!
xo
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Rhondasays
I love your color choice! We have hardwood in our kitchen, entry and mudroom and I would totally do it again. I love it! I’m so excited to see the painted trim and new floors! You’re so brave to tackle the floors yourself!
Oh I love wood floors – there is nothing like them. Maybe it is because they remind me of my parent’s house. I remember wearing fluffy socks, running and sliding all the way down the hall….my sisters and brother would see who could go farther. Great memories. :-)
OH my gosh we just installed almost the exact same flooring! I feel like I must be on the right track if YOU experts are doing that same! Yay! Thanks for sharing love that floor it will look amazing for you guys!
Good call on the prefinished hardwoods! We just refinished our original oak hardwoods and some newly installed unfinished oak hardwoods so they would blend together seemlessly after nocking out a wall – it was a ton of work and a lot of dust.
I highly suggest renting a pneumatic flooring nailer for the install – it’ll save you a lot of time and similiar to other pneumatic nail guns they are oddly satisfying to use :)
Gorgeous floor choice, gorgeous daughter. :-)
GO WITH THE PAINT SPRAYER!
You’ll wonder how you ever lived without one. AND it’s a much less toxic option (I know that word got your attention Sherry!) than spray painting knick knacks in the future.
Good for you on negotiating!!! I negotiate for a living (sweater production manager) and it’s taken a lot of time for me to be comfortable with it in my personal life. It’s not a cultural norm so I think it’s harder for the people you’re negotiating with to say no ;)
Love your choice of hardwoods! I was wondering myself if you would try the paint sprayer route since your bestie has had such awesome experience with it. I think it would really help with covering all that blue. Good luck!
I was wondering if you were going to spray the trim since you didn’t need to worry about the floors. When we built our house, we did all of the painting ourselves and my husband sprayed the ceiling, primer and trim. It was a huge time saver and our family is very happy that we have a sprayer that they can borrow.
Oh – be careful w/ your knees while doing all of the flooring. My husband developed bursitis in his knee from doing all the tiling and we had to sub out the kitchen and master bath because of it.
Good luck! I cannot wait to see the after pictures.
My husbands parents just installed hardwood floors in their downstairs and they are so afraid of them scratching its been 4 weeks and they haven’t taken the paper off of them yet. We joke its the equivalent of buying a couch and keeping the plastic on!
Also I’m selfishly hoping you decide to install a new stair runner because I need a tutorial (no pressure!) Our poor puppy has been slipping down our stairs for months now so we put in temporary treads but yuck are they ugly
Ah sorry last one – but also I am SO afraid of haggling so I rarely do it. But we are renting a house for our wedding weekend this fall and I negotiated the sheets and cleaning service to be included in the price instead of paying $500 extra bucks!! I was so proud of myself!! My fiance says whats the worst that can happen? They say nope sorry!
I love the color hardwoods you chose! My husband and I would love to add hardwoods to our house but since we already live there it would be a task to get all the furniture moved around to do it. I can’t wait to hear how the installation goes and to see how it all comes out! I think hardwoods would really add to the look of our re-done bedroom. And we have a dog so it would be better than carpet!
We bought a refurbished paint sprayer to deal with all of the trim in our house and it worked wonders! My fiancee actually wanted to paint! Usually that is a task he avoids more than he does his vegetables, but after purchasing the sprayer he went on a trim painting craze. He sprayed every piece of trim and I wasn’t even allowed to touch or use the sprayer! Oh, what a new tool can do for that guy!
P.S. – Clara looked adorable with her red purse at the store!
Way to bust out those negotiating skills! :) This is going to look sa-weet installed! It’s so nice that it’s pre-finished, so you don’t have to worry about sanding/staining/poly coat after you install.
Glad to hear you have had such a good experience with them, we just placed our flooring order through them this week. We actually went with a laminate, which I NEVER thought I would choose, but we really liked the one we found and honestly could not tell much of a difference between it and the other real wood sample we liked. Now are you doing the install yourself, we got a quote from their installer, but are also checking with some friends who have done this sort of thing before on whether they could install our product for us cheaper. We are just praying we like the finished product :)
Trying not to write this every day, with every post buuuut… I am so stinkin’ excited about the new house!! LOVE your current house and everything you did in it, but this new home/project is just so exciting! Think the hardwood is a great choice. Can’t wait to see how the installation process goes!
Not that you need suggestions, but because I’ve used it about a dozen times an absolutly LOVE it, you may want to check out the Wagner HVLP paint gun: http://www.gleempaint.com/hvcongun.html
Unfortunately, I see that the one I purchased is Out of Stock :(, but I’m now considering getting the upgrade since I like the less expensive version one so much! The best thing is that you can use your own compressor! It takes a bit of practice to get the “spray” just right, but once you get it down, the outcome is BEAUTIFUL!
My husband and I just put up some board and batten type trim in a room and are excited to use our sprayer for it. He wanted to hand paint and I said heck no, especially since we still haven’t painted the new “top” color in the room overspray won’t be a problem.
That was my favorite from the bunch, so good choice! Good luck with your installation. My husband and I tackled installing hardwood floors in our living and dining rooms a few years ago. We ended up with an oddlot of brazilian cherry from LL at a ridiculous discount that we couldn’t pass it up ($1.49/sq ft!). Of course since we had an oddlot we had to do some manipulations with some of the boards (cut boards down in size to remove imperfections and re-route the tongue or grove on the ends) and it increased our installation time. It took us 16 hours to install the floor in both rooms. Hopefully your installation will go quicker since you have a lot more floor to install than we did!
That’s awesome Jessica! I love that you got it done for such a deal!
xo
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Sarahsays
Ah, I can only wish to afford that. We got carpet for 1.79 installed. It probably will not last forever like these floors though. I think these are beautiful and just think, once you do the floors you can forget about them for the next 20+ years or until you need to sand out a chip or gash.
Good luck installing them. At another house I once owned they installed tongue and groove laminate and the hardest part I think was when they had to cut the pieces of flooring with a saw. Hope you have a good table saw (I’m sure you do – but I just started reading your blog like 2 weeks ago).
So is it weird that since you guys putting down hardwoods, it makes me wish I could too? We put down hardwoods in our hallway about 3 years ago and had a lot of fun doing that. We also pulled up the plywood subfloor so that the wood floors would be level with the tile at either end of the hall. And to make things more fun we documented it with a time lapse video. You can see it by clicking on my name. =)
Soooooo many flashbacks to shopping for wood floors for our 1978 carpet-rific house a few months ago! We were thinking about installing it ourselves, but ended up finding pitchers mound sized lumps in our slab due to some previous foundation work, so for us, going to the pros was best. BUT I sooooooo want to install our own in the next house so I’m super excited to watch you guys go through the process!
Ahhh, yes. I remember those hours of sitting on the floor with the pliers and a cup for the padding staples. We have now removed the carpeting from the stairs, first and second floors and love it. It was an adjustment getting used to the noise. Carpeting does help keep the noise down I guess. And the “no socks on stairs” rule had to be enforced. One thing to be aware of is the doors in the carpeted areas will be too short. We had some looking like “high water” doors. Some we live with but the closet door at the top of the stairs was just too much. We took it off and seamlessly added to the bottom. Much better after it was painted. Good luck with your project.
We’re military and have had four moves in five years, those floors you chose were my absolute favourite. I’m sad we don’t have them any more. We have trendy, dark floors now and the wood (whatever it is…) isn’t oak and it’s too soft – shows every scratch and looks filthy all the time. The oak is perfect and classic!
Love the color. We self installed our 1st floor a few years ago. We also got our wood from lumber liquidators. We found it was way cheaper to buy the floor nailer ( you might already have one) then it is to keeping renting it.
This sprayer was recommended by family handyman and we got it and have done a ton of trim boards and cabinet doors with it. The challenge is thinning the paint to the proper viscosity but it wasn’t that big of a challenge and it’s been doing a great job: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001JEPEES/ref=pe_175190_21431760_M3T1_ST1_dp_1
We’re getting ready to put in our hardwood order – my husband’s been busily ripping out underlayment from the gross carpet. We took a class at our local community college (a two-hour thing) and learned a lot of tips.
For example, we have a round chimney in our family room and we weren’t sure how we’d ever get a clean look there – we learned you actually cut out under the brick and slide the wood underneath!
I can’t wait to follow along your progress as we prepare for the same task!
Yes, thinning it is what scares me most! Some sprayers don’t call for any thinning, so my freaked-out self is more attracted to the pour & go ones. Who knows where we’ll end up though! :)
xo
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Bethanysays
I can’t wait to read more about this! I got really excited when you mentioned the paint sprayer. I’m currently repainting every room of our new house….by myself. With four kids and little spare time, it has become a tedious project. I’m seriously considering the sprayer to speed up some of this process. But it would be great to have a recommendation before I buy!!
When trying to decide the color of our hardwoods, we put different kinds of dirt down as a test; dirt from outside, crumbs, etc. Same with the tile for our bathroom-in there we took hair from the hairbrush to see how badly it would show. The tests helped a lot!
Just something to think about that I wish we would have… hard wood upstairs = noisy. Try to find out about a rubber underlay. It’s dreadful in our kitchen sometime with our (3) kids and dog upstairs, you can hear every thump, bump, and scrape. I believe there are sound deadening (is that a word?) mats out there that can go below the hard wood. Just a suggestion from a slightly sound sensitive parent.
Oh yes, we’re serious about using good underlayment! That plus being a shoe free household and using area rugs a lot really seems to negate the noise. The house I grew up in as a kid had hardwood stairs and in all of the upstairs bedrooms but the good underlayment really made a difference :)
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Erica S.says
Love that you guys are doing the flooring yourselves–looking forward to following along on that journey, and picking up some tips. Our main floor is just subfloor, and the upstairs is carpet. I would love to put down hardwoods (I grew up with hardwood floors, and they are wonderful–they still look like new at my dad’s house) in my 3yo’s room and playroom. Much easier to clean up spills and messes!
I love my paint sprayer!!! We are redoing all of the trim in our home right now and without my paint sprayer I would have gone nuts!! Use it before you put your flooring down of course because it will go everywhere (we had to tape off and put paper down on all of our floors) but it works great! Good luck!
That is the best store!! And I know what you mean about the negotiating! My hubby is the same way! I always have to ask and he says he has to step back to not be embarrassed! But way to go on the 10% discount!! Can’t wait to see the result!!
So, this may be a stupid question (but I’d feel even more stupid for not asking and finding out what the answer is). Do the floors from LL come finished, or will you have to sand, stain, and poly them? I’ve always grown up with original hardwood floors, so I am unfamiliar with having to replace them. We have some termite damage to the hardwoods on the main floor of our home, and we might consider just replacing the floors rather than trying to pry out the eaten, fragile pieces and fitting new little 1″ strips.
That’s a great question! There are two types of hardwoods, prefinished or unfinished. Ours are prefinished, so they’re already sanded and stained and polyed before you put them in, which is nice since it means no dust flying around after they go in and you can walk on them right away :)
Can’t wait to see the result!! Looks like a very big project to do yourselves, but definitely worth it to save $4000(!!!! That’s a big number!!!!!).
I can never bring myself to ask for discounts. :(. You are very brave. My dad used to do those things and it made me want to crawl under a rock and die, but I think you’ve inspired me to put on my big girl panties next time and at least give it a try!!
I’m sure you’ll do great at installing your new floor. My hubby and I just put in our second. The first was a tiny easy-peasy rectangular entry. This time it was a kitchen with some crazy angles. You can see before-and-after here: http://www.owlhaven.net/2013/02/11/my-new-kitchen-floor/ We used elm that my husband milled himself, with a walnut edging. It turned out great and we love it. I can’t believe I lived with terrible vinyl for so many years when it turned out the wood was so doable.
Can’t wait to see what else you do with your new house!
Mary
SO EXCITED FOR YOU GUYS!!! I haven’t said that yet. I am really looking forward to watching this dream home made over. My girls have the same baby doll in the first few pictures. Our baby is always naked too. We actually have two of them, since we have twins. Strangely one of the best purchases ever from Target. :)
Oh my gosh, Clara loves that doll! And she’s always 100% clothes free. Haha!
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Sarahsays
So are you guys getting wood that’s already finished or will you have to sand and stain them after? My husband and I are about embark on this same journey and are weighing our options right now.
It’s prefinished, so once they go down you can walk on them right away and there’s no dusty sanding or staining :)
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Karen Jsays
Is pressed wood the same as particleboard?? That article someone linked to said that it’s inappropriate as a subfloor. You know, because you need me , the non-DIYer, to tell you how to DIY!!
Haha, yes we have to install the floors in a special way, which will be warrantied for 70 years (!!) so we’re really enthused by that confidence! Can’t wait to cover that as we go!
Thumbs up for bottom left! Of course you are going to attempt to install this yourselves, since this is the true heart of your blog – DIY! It is tempting to consider having it done based on the window of time you have, but I’ll bet you can figure out a compromise, like getting enough of it done that you can move most of the upstairs furniture in, and then finishing it while living there. The lesson is for us from you – how hard is it really to do it yourselves, and when is it time to call for help from installers?
Kelsey // It Takes Two says
We installed hardwoods from LL in our foyer a couple months ago and they look great! Their products are definitely high quality, which is amazing for the price. I’ll have to try that “what’s your best price” line next time we go there…
Installing hardwood flooring is a bear of a project (our foyer took us many, many more hours than I care to admit for only 50 sqft, haha) but I’m sure you guys can handle it. Make sure to rent the pneumatic flooring nailer instead of trying to do it all by hand. We had to do it by hand because the angles of our foyer would have been to small to even use the pneumatic nailer, but for big rooms like you guys have, the nailer would be perfect and cut a LOT of time and effort off the project.
Can’t wait to see your process for installing the floors!
Kelsey // It Takes Two says
Gah, that should say “too small”, not “to”!
YoungHouseLove says
Love the tips!
xo
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JenB says
Can you rent a sprayer and see if you like it? My dad has one and I wasn’t crazy about it. BUT, his is OLD. So a newer one will work much better, I’m sure.
As for the floor…love, love, love! The dark color looks so sleek. It also looks great with light, dark or brightly painted walls. Good luck with the installation. I’m sure you guys will have no problem. So get crackin’!! I can’t wait to see the finished product:)
YoungHouseLove says
That’s a good idea! We’ll have to see if we can!
xo
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Amy in Pittsburgh says
Thanks for the Lumber Liquidators info…we stopped in there a few weeks ago b/c I had never been inside, and I liked what I saw but didn’t know much about the company, reputation, quality, etc., so it’s good to read that this is the third time you’ve used them. How did it work when you hired someone for installation the first two times–did you hire a subcontractor yourselves or use someone they recommended?
YoungHouseLove says
We actually just hired someone the first time, so we laid the cork ourselves (it was click and lock though, so we didn’t really do a full installation like hardwoods require). As for our installation the first time with them back in 2007, it was great! We loved it! I think it took them two days to do three rooms and a hallway!
xo
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Rhonda says
I love your color choice! We have hardwood in our kitchen, entry and mudroom and I would totally do it again. I love it! I’m so excited to see the painted trim and new floors! You’re so brave to tackle the floors yourself!
Ashley@AttemptsAtDomestication says
Can’t wait to see how it’s all going to turn out! Woohoo for new flooring!
Rebecca Lately says
Yay! I can’t wait to read through the whole painting/hardwood floor process!
Christine says
We just installed that same exact flooring this week! Great choice — I hope you love it as much as I do! :-)
YoungHouseLove says
So glad you love it!
xo
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Gabriella @ Our Life In Action says
Oh I love wood floors – there is nothing like them. Maybe it is because they remind me of my parent’s house. I remember wearing fluffy socks, running and sliding all the way down the hall….my sisters and brother would see who could go farther. Great memories. :-)
Lindsay says
OH my gosh we just installed almost the exact same flooring! I feel like I must be on the right track if YOU experts are doing that same! Yay! Thanks for sharing love that floor it will look amazing for you guys!
YoungHouseLove says
Aw, I love that we’re floor twins! You love it, right? So pretty.
xo
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Becky says
Good call on the prefinished hardwoods! We just refinished our original oak hardwoods and some newly installed unfinished oak hardwoods so they would blend together seemlessly after nocking out a wall – it was a ton of work and a lot of dust.
I highly suggest renting a pneumatic flooring nailer for the install – it’ll save you a lot of time and similiar to other pneumatic nail guns they are oddly satisfying to use :)
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks Becky!
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Aly says
Gorgeous floor choice, gorgeous daughter. :-)
GO WITH THE PAINT SPRAYER!
You’ll wonder how you ever lived without one. AND it’s a much less toxic option (I know that word got your attention Sherry!) than spray painting knick knacks in the future.
YoungHouseLove says
Love that!
xo
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jenn says
my dad and i have installed hard wood floors a couple of times, we manage to finish each room in a day. it’s not too hard once you get going.
YoungHouseLove says
That’s awesome Jenn!
xo
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Kim says
Good for you on negotiating!!! I negotiate for a living (sweater production manager) and it’s taken a lot of time for me to be comfortable with it in my personal life. It’s not a cultural norm so I think it’s harder for the people you’re negotiating with to say no ;)
April says
Love your choice of hardwoods! I was wondering myself if you would try the paint sprayer route since your bestie has had such awesome experience with it. I think it would really help with covering all that blue. Good luck!
Erin in VA says
I was wondering if you were going to spray the trim since you didn’t need to worry about the floors. When we built our house, we did all of the painting ourselves and my husband sprayed the ceiling, primer and trim. It was a huge time saver and our family is very happy that we have a sprayer that they can borrow.
Oh – be careful w/ your knees while doing all of the flooring. My husband developed bursitis in his knee from doing all the tiling and we had to sub out the kitchen and master bath because of it.
Good luck! I cannot wait to see the after pictures.
YoungHouseLove says
Ugh, bursitis is the worst! We’re going to guard our knees like crazy! Here’s hoping we get ‘er done!
xo
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Stephanie says
Beautiful, love them!
Ani says
2 fav things about this post:
1- Clara’s red purse!!
2- the 10% discount!
Happy wood-stallation!
Katie says
My husbands parents just installed hardwood floors in their downstairs and they are so afraid of them scratching its been 4 weeks and they haven’t taken the paper off of them yet. We joke its the equivalent of buying a couch and keeping the plastic on!
Also I’m selfishly hoping you decide to install a new stair runner because I need a tutorial (no pressure!) Our poor puppy has been slipping down our stairs for months now so we put in temporary treads but yuck are they ugly
Katie says
Ah sorry last one – but also I am SO afraid of haggling so I rarely do it. But we are renting a house for our wedding weekend this fall and I negotiated the sheets and cleaning service to be included in the price instead of paying $500 extra bucks!! I was so proud of myself!! My fiance says whats the worst that can happen? They say nope sorry!
YoungHouseLove says
That’s awesome Katie!
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YoungHouseLove says
Haha, keeping the paper on is hilarious! And we’re definitely open to a stair runner down the line so we’ll keep you posted!
xo
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Emily says
I love the color hardwoods you chose! My husband and I would love to add hardwoods to our house but since we already live there it would be a task to get all the furniture moved around to do it. I can’t wait to hear how the installation goes and to see how it all comes out! I think hardwoods would really add to the look of our re-done bedroom. And we have a dog so it would be better than carpet!
Master Bedroom Makeover- http://lovepastatoolbelt.com/?p=1118
Laura says
We bought a refurbished paint sprayer to deal with all of the trim in our house and it worked wonders! My fiancee actually wanted to paint! Usually that is a task he avoids more than he does his vegetables, but after purchasing the sprayer he went on a trim painting craze. He sprayed every piece of trim and I wasn’t even allowed to touch or use the sprayer! Oh, what a new tool can do for that guy!
P.S. – Clara looked adorable with her red purse at the store!
YoungHouseLove says
Never get between a dude and his paint sprayer. Haha!
xo
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Mr. & Mrs. P says
Cant wait to see the progress!!!!!
Mary | lemongroveblog says
Way to bust out those negotiating skills! :) This is going to look sa-weet installed! It’s so nice that it’s pre-finished, so you don’t have to worry about sanding/staining/poly coat after you install.
Katie@PopCultureCuisine says
Glad to hear you have had such a good experience with them, we just placed our flooring order through them this week. We actually went with a laminate, which I NEVER thought I would choose, but we really liked the one we found and honestly could not tell much of a difference between it and the other real wood sample we liked. Now are you doing the install yourself, we got a quote from their installer, but are also checking with some friends who have done this sort of thing before on whether they could install our product for us cheaper. We are just praying we like the finished product :)
carli says
Trying not to write this every day, with every post buuuut… I am so stinkin’ excited about the new house!! LOVE your current house and everything you did in it, but this new home/project is just so exciting! Think the hardwood is a great choice. Can’t wait to see how the installation process goes!
YoungHouseLove says
Haha, thanks Carli!
xo
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Kathy Benca says
Not that you need suggestions, but because I’ve used it about a dozen times an absolutly LOVE it, you may want to check out the Wagner HVLP paint gun: http://www.gleempaint.com/hvcongun.html
Unfortunately, I see that the one I purchased is Out of Stock :(, but I’m now considering getting the upgrade since I like the less expensive version one so much! The best thing is that you can use your own compressor! It takes a bit of practice to get the “spray” just right, but once you get it down, the outcome is BEAUTIFUL!
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks Kathy! We hear great things about Wagner!
xo
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Kerry says
Good luck with the painting and hardwood installation, can’t wait to see the transformation!
Rebecca says
My husband and I just put up some board and batten type trim in a room and are excited to use our sprayer for it. He wanted to hand paint and I said heck no, especially since we still haven’t painted the new “top” color in the room overspray won’t be a problem.
Jessica says
That was my favorite from the bunch, so good choice! Good luck with your installation. My husband and I tackled installing hardwood floors in our living and dining rooms a few years ago. We ended up with an oddlot of brazilian cherry from LL at a ridiculous discount that we couldn’t pass it up ($1.49/sq ft!). Of course since we had an oddlot we had to do some manipulations with some of the boards (cut boards down in size to remove imperfections and re-route the tongue or grove on the ends) and it increased our installation time. It took us 16 hours to install the floor in both rooms. Hopefully your installation will go quicker since you have a lot more floor to install than we did!
YoungHouseLove says
That’s awesome Jessica! I love that you got it done for such a deal!
xo
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Sarah says
Ah, I can only wish to afford that. We got carpet for 1.79 installed. It probably will not last forever like these floors though. I think these are beautiful and just think, once you do the floors you can forget about them for the next 20+ years or until you need to sand out a chip or gash.
Good luck installing them. At another house I once owned they installed tongue and groove laminate and the hardest part I think was when they had to cut the pieces of flooring with a saw. Hope you have a good table saw (I’m sure you do – but I just started reading your blog like 2 weeks ago).
YoungHouseLove says
Aw thanks Sarah!
xo
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Natalie says
So is it weird that since you guys putting down hardwoods, it makes me wish I could too? We put down hardwoods in our hallway about 3 years ago and had a lot of fun doing that. We also pulled up the plywood subfloor so that the wood floors would be level with the tile at either end of the hall. And to make things more fun we documented it with a time lapse video. You can see it by clicking on my name. =)
Have fun! =)
YoungHouseLove says
So much fun!!
xo
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Katelyn @ evanandkatelyn.com says
Soooooo many flashbacks to shopping for wood floors for our 1978 carpet-rific house a few months ago! We were thinking about installing it ourselves, but ended up finding pitchers mound sized lumps in our slab due to some previous foundation work, so for us, going to the pros was best. BUT I sooooooo want to install our own in the next house so I’m super excited to watch you guys go through the process!
Jane in STL says
Ahhh, yes. I remember those hours of sitting on the floor with the pliers and a cup for the padding staples. We have now removed the carpeting from the stairs, first and second floors and love it. It was an adjustment getting used to the noise. Carpeting does help keep the noise down I guess. And the “no socks on stairs” rule had to be enforced. One thing to be aware of is the doors in the carpeted areas will be too short. We had some looking like “high water” doors. Some we live with but the closet door at the top of the stairs was just too much. We took it off and seamlessly added to the bottom. Much better after it was painted. Good luck with your project.
YoungHouseLove says
Smart!
xo
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Kristen says
We’re military and have had four moves in five years, those floors you chose were my absolute favourite. I’m sad we don’t have them any more. We have trendy, dark floors now and the wood (whatever it is…) isn’t oak and it’s too soft – shows every scratch and looks filthy all the time. The oak is perfect and classic!
Becky says
Love the color. We self installed our 1st floor a few years ago. We also got our wood from lumber liquidators. We found it was way cheaper to buy the floor nailer ( you might already have one) then it is to keeping renting it.
YoungHouseLove says
Love that tip!
xo
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Marcy says
This sprayer was recommended by family handyman and we got it and have done a ton of trim boards and cabinet doors with it. The challenge is thinning the paint to the proper viscosity but it wasn’t that big of a challenge and it’s been doing a great job: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001JEPEES/ref=pe_175190_21431760_M3T1_ST1_dp_1
We’re getting ready to put in our hardwood order – my husband’s been busily ripping out underlayment from the gross carpet. We took a class at our local community college (a two-hour thing) and learned a lot of tips.
For example, we have a round chimney in our family room and we weren’t sure how we’d ever get a clean look there – we learned you actually cut out under the brick and slide the wood underneath!
I can’t wait to follow along your progress as we prepare for the same task!
YoungHouseLove says
Yes, thinning it is what scares me most! Some sprayers don’t call for any thinning, so my freaked-out self is more attracted to the pour & go ones. Who knows where we’ll end up though! :)
xo
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Bethany says
I can’t wait to read more about this! I got really excited when you mentioned the paint sprayer. I’m currently repainting every room of our new house….by myself. With four kids and little spare time, it has become a tedious project. I’m seriously considering the sprayer to speed up some of this process. But it would be great to have a recommendation before I buy!!
Kim says
When trying to decide the color of our hardwoods, we put different kinds of dirt down as a test; dirt from outside, crumbs, etc. Same with the tile for our bathroom-in there we took hair from the hairbrush to see how badly it would show. The tests helped a lot!
YoungHouseLove says
So smart!
xo
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Olivia says
Hi Sherry and John,
Just something to think about that I wish we would have… hard wood upstairs = noisy. Try to find out about a rubber underlay. It’s dreadful in our kitchen sometime with our (3) kids and dog upstairs, you can hear every thump, bump, and scrape. I believe there are sound deadening (is that a word?) mats out there that can go below the hard wood. Just a suggestion from a slightly sound sensitive parent.
Best of luck, can’t wait to see!
Olivia
YoungHouseLove says
Oh yes, we’re serious about using good underlayment! That plus being a shoe free household and using area rugs a lot really seems to negate the noise. The house I grew up in as a kid had hardwood stairs and in all of the upstairs bedrooms but the good underlayment really made a difference :)
xo
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Erica S. says
Love that you guys are doing the flooring yourselves–looking forward to following along on that journey, and picking up some tips. Our main floor is just subfloor, and the upstairs is carpet. I would love to put down hardwoods (I grew up with hardwood floors, and they are wonderful–they still look like new at my dad’s house) in my 3yo’s room and playroom. Much easier to clean up spills and messes!
Molly says
I love my paint sprayer!!! We are redoing all of the trim in our home right now and without my paint sprayer I would have gone nuts!! Use it before you put your flooring down of course because it will go everywhere (we had to tape off and put paper down on all of our floors) but it works great! Good luck!
Karla says
That is the best store!! And I know what you mean about the negotiating! My hubby is the same way! I always have to ask and he says he has to step back to not be embarrassed! But way to go on the 10% discount!! Can’t wait to see the result!!
Jessica says
So, this may be a stupid question (but I’d feel even more stupid for not asking and finding out what the answer is). Do the floors from LL come finished, or will you have to sand, stain, and poly them? I’ve always grown up with original hardwood floors, so I am unfamiliar with having to replace them. We have some termite damage to the hardwoods on the main floor of our home, and we might consider just replacing the floors rather than trying to pry out the eaten, fragile pieces and fitting new little 1″ strips.
YoungHouseLove says
That’s a great question! There are two types of hardwoods, prefinished or unfinished. Ours are prefinished, so they’re already sanded and stained and polyed before you put them in, which is nice since it means no dust flying around after they go in and you can walk on them right away :)
xo
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Eva | Happily Enough says
Can’t wait to see the result!! Looks like a very big project to do yourselves, but definitely worth it to save $4000(!!!! That’s a big number!!!!!).
I can never bring myself to ask for discounts. :(. You are very brave. My dad used to do those things and it made me want to crawl under a rock and die, but I think you’ve inspired me to put on my big girl panties next time and at least give it a try!!
YoungHouseLove says
You can do it Eva!
xo
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Mary Ostyn (Owlhaven) says
I’m sure you’ll do great at installing your new floor. My hubby and I just put in our second. The first was a tiny easy-peasy rectangular entry. This time it was a kitchen with some crazy angles. You can see before-and-after here: http://www.owlhaven.net/2013/02/11/my-new-kitchen-floor/ We used elm that my husband milled himself, with a walnut edging. It turned out great and we love it. I can’t believe I lived with terrible vinyl for so many years when it turned out the wood was so doable.
Can’t wait to see what else you do with your new house!
Mary
YoungHouseLove says
That’s amazing Mary! Congrats!
xo
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Elizabeth Beattie says
SO EXCITED FOR YOU GUYS!!! I haven’t said that yet. I am really looking forward to watching this dream home made over. My girls have the same baby doll in the first few pictures. Our baby is always naked too. We actually have two of them, since we have twins. Strangely one of the best purchases ever from Target. :)
YoungHouseLove says
Oh my gosh, Clara loves that doll! And she’s always 100% clothes free. Haha!
xo
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Sarah says
So are you guys getting wood that’s already finished or will you have to sand and stain them after? My husband and I are about embark on this same journey and are weighing our options right now.
YoungHouseLove says
It’s prefinished, so once they go down you can walk on them right away and there’s no dusty sanding or staining :)
xo
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Karen J says
Is pressed wood the same as particleboard?? That article someone linked to said that it’s inappropriate as a subfloor. You know, because you need me , the non-DIYer, to tell you how to DIY!!
YoungHouseLove says
Haha, yes we have to install the floors in a special way, which will be warrantied for 70 years (!!) so we’re really enthused by that confidence! Can’t wait to cover that as we go!
xo
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Leigh Anne says
Wow 4 grand is a huge savings! And I’ve always heard installing flooring is a pretty basic DIY :) Good luck!
Stacey @ Likes to Smile says
My favorite part of this post was the updates on how Clara entertained herself while you were shopping. Congratulations on the new flooring!
lindsay says
Thumbs up for bottom left! Of course you are going to attempt to install this yourselves, since this is the true heart of your blog – DIY! It is tempting to consider having it done based on the window of time you have, but I’ll bet you can figure out a compromise, like getting enough of it done that you can move most of the upstairs furniture in, and then finishing it while living there. The lesson is for us from you – how hard is it really to do it yourselves, and when is it time to call for help from installers?
YoungHouseLove says
Oh man, we’re about to find out, aren’t we?! Haha!
xo
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