We're Floored

One thing was certain when Cory and I purchased our new home: all of the floors needed to be replaced.  Not only were the original floors worn, stained, and a bit stinky from animal pee, they also didn't flow from room to room.

The wood floor in the family room was nice, but this wood was only in the family room and butler's pantry.

Wide-plank wood was in lots of areas of the house.  However, it was stained in some areas, was only around the perimeter of many rooms, and simply isn't the style we are into.

Do you recall the thick slate tiles in the foyer?  It's hard to believe how much concrete was under there.

And let's not even talk about the unfortunate carpets that graced the floors of the existing bedrooms.

Since we totally changed the floor plan upstairs, made lots of tweaks downstairs, and added an addition onto the house, it only made sense to overhaul the floors and choose something new that we could carry throughout the house.

Cory and I looked at lots of different options but we were fairly certain we knew what we wanted.  We definitely wanted wood - real wood - and we were rather confident that we wanted something in the grey family.

After looking at a couple local flooring stores and discovering that none of them had anything that we loved, I started scouring the internet.  I quickly came across a company called Cali Bamboo and I absolutely loved what I saw on their website.

Our original plan was to convert the old baseboard heaters to radiant floor heating.  Most flooring companies do not allow their products to be used over radiant heat, but Cali Bamboo does.  That was a huge selling point for us.  It turns out that we didn't go with radiant heat for a few reasons, but if we ever decide to bite the money bullet in the future, these floors will hold up just fine.

I ordered three samples from Cali Bamboo in the three shades of grey they carry.  When they arrived we couldn't get over how thick and gorgeous they were.  Our contractor was also impressed, especially after he dug his car key into the finish to see if the wood would scratch and it didn't leave even the slightest mark.

We chose our favorite shade of grey and I did some sweet talking with the Cali Bamboo representative.  When you have to order enough bamboo to cover the amount of flooring we have, well, you need to get a good deal.  The representative was incredibly easy to work with and he gave us a bit of a discount in return for submitting photos of the finished job and providing a testimonial for their website.  Score!

While we were vacationing at the beach, our contractor sent Cory a photo of the flooring delivery.

Over 13,000 pounds of bamboo arrived, and of course it was unloaded onto the driveway.  We felt just a wee bit guilty that one guy had to carry all that flooring inside and stack it in various rooms.  This photo doesn't even show all the boxes plus the rolls of padding that he had to move.  Poor guy.  I hope he iced his muscles that night.

Anyway, the flooring remained in the boxes for more than a month while we waited for some other things, like painting, to be completed.  Then we had to unpack the wood and stack it to acclimate for at least three days before laying it.

My sister Becky and I unpacked a bunch of these boxes one evening and discovered the joys of countless splinters in our hands.  It was great fun.

And we stacked it like Cali Bamboo recommends so it can acclimate.

A few weeks later Cory and I tackled a huge stack of boxes that was in the large living room.  I unpacked the boxes and Cory carried all the wood upstairs.  487 trips up the stairs later and we had this nice stack in Tessa's bedroom to use in the kids' study.

When we finally were ready to lay the bamboo we decided to start in our master closet.  Our contractor recommended we start here because if we made a mistake as we learned how to lay the wood, we would be the only ones to see it.  That made sense to us.  So after clearing the room and using the shop vac to suck up all the dust and bits of debris, we began by laying the padding.  This green stuff is really durable . . . and really tough to cut with the junky scissors I brought from home.  Our hands cramped every time we had to cut this stuff.

The room was prepped and we were ready to roll.  The first piece of bamboo went down and it looked so preeeeeeetty!  

Cory got a tad bit frustrated at first because the boards didn't want to stay together.  Then our contractor came in, saw our struggle, and gave us some wood shims to put along the wall so Cory had something to push the wood against.  Because this wood needs to float, we had to leave a 1/4 inch gap around the edges.  Without the shims, Cory had nothing to hold the boards in place.  Once this problem was solved he was able to move quickly and make lots of progress.

Both of us truly enjoyed using the big saw to cut the boards.  That tool is so. much. fun.  I think I want one.

Cory used the table saw to cut some of the last boards down to size.  I think he wants one of these saws as well.

A couple hours later, we were down to the last little piece of wood for the closet!  

In it went, and the closet was done.  

We LOVE how it turned out!  I don't think either of us realized how capable we are to do projects like this, so it's pretty cool to see our handiwork.  And this bamboo looks awesome.  The color is perfect, the wide planks are are exactly what we wanted, and it gives the house the modern look and feel we love.

This was just the first room of many, but it definitely gave us the confidence we needed to move forward with the rest of the house.  More pics of the rest of the rooms are forthcoming!