In with the new

Well, so far so good! We spent the majority of last weekend working on finishing the front room and upstairs landing with the Red Oak flooring that we have. You can see the difference between the original kitchen entry on the left after we had ripped out the old carpeting and the new interlaced (that was a pain in the butt by the way) flooring on the right. I have to say that we had the flooring angels on our side during this weekends work. Although we did get a much later start than we had hoped too, somehow all of the corners and vents and walls seemed to land dead on in line with a plank seam. Had this not happened, I would have had to find some creative way of ripping the boards and lining them up correctly so that the rest of the floor wasn't crooked. Any way we made good progress, A~ and I haven't had a good home remodel project to work on since the recycled concrete work we did this spring and we always enjoy working together; this time was no different!
Here's another before and after. This is our front sitting room. Mainly it serves as a landing strip for our boys when they hurl themselves down the stairs which you might have noticed are not finnished yet. This will be my project for the next week or so. I fear that it will be slow going; I could by all of the finished bull-nose stair peices but at $40.00 per 5' piece, I think I'll be putting the old table saw to use thank you very much! I have been successfull in finishing off the entry ways to the bedrooms over the last couple of days, so I am not to worried about the stairs. Measure twice cut once right Dad? (It took a long time to learn that lesson I'll tell you!) Below is a picture of the finished bedroom entries. I have to say I'm pretty proud of the work I did, seeing as how I've never done it.

We still haven't decided on how we are going to ifnish the flooring. We are leaning towards the Tried and True product that I reviewed HERE, but we just aren't sure. It has to be durable, and waterproof, but we would like to avoid the polyurethanes if possible. Notice on the first before and after picture of the kitchen entry; the yellowing that can happen after just a couple of years. PolyUrethane is photo sensitive and will do that. Oil and wax penetrating sealants won't, or at least that is my understanding.

I was curious, it seemed there was a bit of interest in the wood flooring when I first posted it, is there any questions about the installation process that I can adress for any of you while they might be fresh in my mind. I know Phelan at Homesteading neophyte just did some nice wood flooring in her place, anyone else planning on it?

P~