Weekend Chaos {New Floors Going In!}

We've been wanting to get rid of the carpet in our dining room.   The previous owners put it down and it was a beige color.  Not the best choice when having kids and a black furry friend that sheds like crazy.    I loathed that carpet and didn't hesitate to tell the hubby so.  Sorry, hubby.  It just drove me crazy how easily stained it would get and how the black dog hair showed.  On Thursday night, we started ripping up the carpet...and we kept going.  We took up the laminate that was in the kitchen/dining area, as well as the laminate in the great room.  The laminates in the kitchen and great room were not the same.  They were very close in color but not the same flooring because we could not match the original that was in the kitchen that the previous owners had installed.  So, we had nasty carpet in the dining room, laminate in the kitchen, and a different laminate in the great room.  There were also 3 different kinds of baseboard on the first floor.  Time for some consistency!

Here are some pics of what these rooms looked like before:

Dining Room Carpet

Great Room--Floors and Bookcases

Here is the current state of our garage.  Holy cow.  Never have a seen such a pile of junk.  We may be buying a BAGSTER to have this stuff hauled out of here.

Since Thursday night, we have:

-Ripped up carpet in the dining room
-Taken down the bookcases in the great room (remember my dilemma?  If you didn't get to read about that check out that post HERE)
-Taken up laminate flooring in the kitchen, dining area, and the great room (over 500 square foot total!)
-Taken off all baseboards on the first floor in these rooms
-Ripped up the original linoleum that was UNDER the laminate in the kitchen and dining area
-Painstakingly took up the backing of the linoleum that stuck to the floor (think like the paper backing  of wallpaper, trying the get that off---a real pain in the @#$^&^%$!)
-Primed and painted over the red wall in the great room that was behind the bookcases
-Put down the new floor in the dining room
-Started on the great room

Here is the demolition (and disaster!):

Now it is Saturday morning.  Here is the progress thus far:

New floor in the dining room.  It is called ULTRA made by Allure.  We bought it at Home Depot.  It is actually vinyl but looks incredibly like real wood.  It is more expensive than most laminates but we loved the look and the fact that it is 100% waterproof.  We had a dishwasher leak last year that ruined the laminate around it in our kitchen, so that was important to us.  I love this new color--you can't tell, but it has "ding" marks in it to make it look like worn, rustic wood.  It does claim to be the "Easiest Floor Ever!" on the box.  Hubby doesn't quite agree with that.  :)

Of course, baseboards still need added, but we're a ways away from that step!

Here is the new wall in the great room, no bookcases or red paint AND partial new floor down!

 We decided to take the bookcases down for a couple reasons.  The most important being that there was old carpet under them from before we put laminate in the great room.  Another reason is that we did not want the red paint anymore, and there was no way to easily paint behind the bookcases.  I am happy with our decision.  We have a lot more decisions to make now--we need to decide what to do with this huge, blank 18' wall.  We have some ideas and will be posting in the future about all of that progress!

I will be posting again this weekend to show continuous updates and progress!  Our backs, hands, and arms are so sore we want to cry.  Cross your fingers we finish before too many weeks  days go by.  Little me has to start to get in my classroom a lot this week to  get ready for school to start.  WAAAAAH!!!  Too many things going on.  Why did we wait until 2 weeks before school starts to do this?

Hope you'll pop back soon for frequent updates on the many projects and decorating that will be going on in my house!  Have a great Saturday!