Finding our floor!

On closing day in our little corner of Michigan, we pulled up the carpet in the hallway and found our heart's desire - the original hardwood flooring. This was a purely investigative measure, and we came back two days later for our first weekend in the house.

In retrospect, the calmest weekend in the house.

Upon arriving, the house was chilly and I turned the heat on and went to work in the smaller bedroom while Alex unloaded the car. He thought this was from excitement, when in reality I wanted to heat up fast while the house warmed up. More on not freezing by the lake, later.

Local waste management asked me to cut the carpet into 4' sections and roll up for when we put out at the curb, or highway, and that worked out to a manageable width for me. The tacks around the edges were the worst in terms of removal, but only took a couple of hours total. Then, I yanked up the hallway laminate, and decided it was a good time to wind down when Alex came in with the last load.

Next morning, I finished the laminate while he sought out coffee and breakfast. The important things in life.

We had an appointment with a local satellite installer to have internet access at home, so I pulled the flooring until he appeared, got him started and then Alex chatted with him about the internet and satellites and gigahertz while I stuffed my face. We ended up needing a business class connection, and can share more about that if anyone else cares, but I have some next-level tech support in-house and really couldn't get anything done without him.

A few spots of water damage showed in the hallway and near edge of kitchen, so we removed a row of tile surgically to see what was under it. I crossed fingers hard that the floor would be salvageable in the kitchen adjacent area. Lunch and a trip to Lowe's began the baseboard trim stripping process, since I don't have enough fun hobbies - but we wanted to see what the existing boards could look like if we got it together.

We sorted the laminate into reusable and waste piles, filled our trash bin with underlayment and some super gross carpet pad, and took off on Monday morning between Alex's calls.