Long Time Gone

It's been a long time coming.  A really long time.  Our new kitchen floors are 95% done.  We still need to do the quarter round and put the vent covers back on.  And by we, I mean my dad and my husband.  They are amazing and laid the whole kitchen floor.  Like everything in our house, it took way longer than we had imagined.  They worked for at least eight hours yesterday and got about half of the floor done.  Part of the problem was all of the angles in the bay window.  The other problem was the fact that the boards wouldn't stay clicked together.  Arg.  But in the end, it was totally worth it.  To me anyway, my mom and I hung out and watched movies while the guys worked.

Before I can show off my pretty new floor, I need to show you guys how truly bad it was.  The floor was super stained, there were paint splatters and just general gunk I couldn't get off despite my best efforts.  I had mopped that bad boy on my hands and knees with a rag and a bucket with no success.  I had tried paint thinner to get the paint spots up.  No luck.  It was terrible.  And super embarrassing when anybody came over.

That line down the right side of the picture, that's the seam in the linoleum.  Awesome.

The floor is peeling up around all the edges because they never put quarter round down.  Awesome.

Our filthy looking floor.  How many paint spots can you count?  And believe it or not, this is just after it's been mopped.  That's just plain embarrassing!

Now that I'm thoroughly mortified because I showed you our nasty floor up close and personal I can show you my pretty new floor.  I think you'll agree it was worth all my dad & husband's hard work.  Last night when it was half done I told my mom I wanted to lay in the middle of the new floor and tell it how much I love it.  I resisted, I didn't want to do anything to screw up the floor before it was done.

The floor as it was last night.  Those are my dad's feet.  I was instructed to take no actual pictures of him or my husband.  Apparently laying floor makes one feel especially un-photogenic.

Hello pretty new floor, I know we're going to be best friends.

Man, that's just gorgeous.

A true before and after.  Isn't that a thousand times better?  Ignore the pile of stuff you can see in the front hallway, I had packed a blizzard bag just in case I couldn't get home from work.  Apparently the front hall is an appropriate place to dump it so that I can take pictures of my pretty floor.

What have you guys been up to?  Anybody else con the men in their lives into tackling major projects over the weekend?  Our living room and hallway are next on the list, they're getting the same flooring.  I picked up a quart of paint for a potential snow day project for tomorrow.  My Pinterest Challenge project may not happen on time thanks to the snow that's in the forecast.  I tried to buy some craft supplies this morning, shockingly there wasn't anyone at the fabric counter at Walmart at seven this morning on my way to work.  Sigh.  That's why I got paint.  Are you guys participating in the Pinterest Challenge over at YHL?  Wanna tell me what you're making so I can live vicariously through you?  Pretty please?!