The Legendary Hardwood Floor, or What Were We Thinking?

So, as I mentioned, Mr. X and I have been installing a hardwood floor. And I promised pictures (I know, incredibly exciting, isn't it?)!

We started by tearing out the carpet in the living room and dining room. It was DISGUSTING! I am so happy it's gone. Then, we (OK, Mr. X and our neighbor) started on the kitchen floor. When we moved in, it had bad sheet vinyl that was torn in places. Before our first party, a friend and I (Mr. X was on a business trip) put down vinyl tiles as a temporary fix. But when Mr. X started to investigate the kitchen floor, this is what he found:
















And that was all well and good, but then he found this:















(the floor, not my feet.) This was not good.

So, it turned out that under the torn sheet vinyl was plywood, stapled down about every two inches along the edges (NOT kidding, and these were the long staples, maybe an inch long into the plywood), and under the plywood was the original 1970s sheet vinyl.

Ick. So, after tearing up all of that, we took out the baseboard--oh, I'm sorry, casement masquerading as baseboard:

(I had a picture of the baseboard here, but Mr. X thought his hand looked like a claw in the picture, so you'll just have to imagine it.)


(seriously, I found it at H.ome D.epot. It's casement.) But was our casement installed with nice, little finishing nails? Ohhhhh, no:















Look at that! Those nails are about 2 1/2 inches long! At least the baseboard wasn't going to fall off the wall any time soon. (And doesn't Mr. X's hand look nice?)

By the time we were ready to start actually laying the floor, it was 4:00. So, this is how far we got on Saturday night:














We're going to do some touching up so that the seams between pieces don't show up so much, but other than that, I think it's looking nice!

This picture gives you an idea of the before-and-after (and yes, the entry way is under construction, too):















This shows the railing (which we stripped, in another act of insanity, back in November). We're going to stain the banister to match the floor. It also shows the subfloor and underlayment. It's a floating floor, so hooray for no glue or nails! At this point, we had half the living room finished. Tonight, probably the whole area in this picture is finished.

Also, do you see that big water mark on the subfloor near the railing? What were these people doing in the living room? There is no plumbing there! Seriously, there are water marks all over the subfloor in the living room. Did they have the living room full of leaky potted plants? Old humidifiers? Or--heaven help us--did their pets have serious incontinence issues? These are the mysteries we will ponder . . .