We were lucky enough to have my aunt and uncle volunteer to help us install the new floors. I buttered them up with dinner at our house a few weeks before and they were nice enough to spend an entire Saturday at our house helping Ben and I install the flooring (and I do mean entire Saturday, over 15 hours worth). They not only made sure our floor looked beautiful, they made sure Ben and I didn't kill each other- haha.
Ben and I started laying the underlayment at 8:30 on Saturday morning and my aunt and uncle arrived at 9 am to help. Right away my uncle and Ben started strategizing and I was happy to not participate. :) The boys started laying flooring while my aunt and I continued with the underlayment. I had one goal for the day- only use 3 rolls of underlayment. The guy at the flooring store said we needed 4 bags of underlayment but once we got home, I calculated and figured out that if we were very careful we could get away with 3 and I could get $80 back. My aunt and I were very talented at patching the underlayment together at the end- we were quite crafty. In the end we ended up with 3 feet left over- mission accomplished.
The morning went smoothly and we were moving pretty quick in the kitchen. We had to move the appliances as we went, put the flooring in and then move the appliances back. In theory this should be no problem and for the stove it wasn't. When we moved the fridge right away we realized there was a problem. The linoleum was peeling and it was pretty obvious there was water damage. Ben and I quickly went to work tearing up linoleum, tearing up sub floor and replacing it while my aunt and uncle continued to lay flooring in the dining area. It delayed us a little while but not a big deal. I thought that was going to be our biggest delay of the day....boy was I wrong. ha. The boys continued flooring and it was time to move the fridge back. I was in charge of placing the felt movers under the feet of the fridge while the boys tipped the fridge and then moved it back into place. It soon became apparent that we forgot to calculate how much higher the floor would be than the old floor and now the fridge was too tall to fit under the cabinets.
I was quickly put on a googling mission to find out if there was a fridge that would fit under the cabinets or if we would be better off trimming the cabinets. I found a fridge that was going to work but it was 4 cubic feet smaller than our current fridge, not really a great option. We decided to put the fridge back in it's general area and tackle that problem later (Really I kept googling and sent everyone else back to work). The boys got back to flooring and got to deal with our awesome crooked walls. At about 4pm we started the hallway area and I was thinking we would be done by 8ish. Again, I was wrong. The hallways came with all sorts of issues including having to cut the door frames so the flooring would fit under them and attempting to place transition pieces between the laminate flooring and our carpet/tile areas. I spent the last two hours of flooring placement sitting on the couch trying to stay awake. Finally at 11pm we let my aunt and uncle go home. At this point all the flooring was laid with the exception of the closet floors and the transition strips. I fell asleep before my head even hit the pillow.
The next morning Ben and I woke up to find out that we felt like a train had hit us. Ben's legs were completely bruised from his knees to his ankles. We could barely move. Regardless, we were pretty determined to get everything else done that day. The transition strips were terrible to install. The one going into the bathroom was easy but our bedroom was a pain and we broke the one for the office (and we still haven't fixed that one). The stairs were also a challenge. We had to glue the trim pieces around the top of the stairs which was a 3 day process but it turned out well. We then braved Lowes and Home Depot to go refrigerator shopping. We found the one fridge that would fit under our existing cupboards and it was teeny tiny. We went home, cut the cabinets and moved the fridge back. You can't even tell we cut the cabinets. We spent the rest of the day cleaning and putting our house back together.
Now for some pictures:
Before Pictures:
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The gorgeous linoleum we have been living with.....    
The after....
         
Ben and I are in agreement that after these past couple months of working on the house we are both ready for a break. We are committed to putting in trim and then taking the spring/summer off from working on the house. We might do little projects here and there but no big projects.
I will update again once we have the trim installed- this weekends project!
Cheers,
Ali
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