How Many Days...

does it take to dismantle your house, yet moving NOTHING out of it?

Apparently one.

Tomorrow starts an adventure for our little clan.  We are having the hardwood floors on our main level refinished.  I can in all honesty say it's about time.  They have not been touched by anything but human feet, metal protruding felt chair pads, and longish dog nails in almost 14 years.    That doesn't include the time our faucet leaked, or the time the light fixture fell from out 10 foot ceilings, leaving a lovely dent in our floors or a myriad of other mishaps that are common with 4 children.

We had several choices of when we could do this.  MY preference would have been to do it over the Christmas break.  Not sure why I thought this would be a better choice, having the children home for the duration rather than doing it while the children were spending at least 6 hours each day at school.  Regardless, Christmas break wasn't an option. Apparently someone thought likewise, although my guess is that they will not attempt to reside in their house while it's being refinished, instead heading to warmer climes (see Let it Snow post).  Our choices were Dec 13, Dec 20 or into Jan.  Now, Dec 20 was off the table.  They would JUST BARELY be done by Christmas.  Initially Dec 13 was also off the table and I was leaning more towards January, because it would be more convenient.  Then I realized...NO TIME is "more" convenient.  So, why not just bite the bullet and get'er done now and start the New Year out with fresh beautiful floors?  The husband took a little convincing.  I still don't think he's completely there yet.  We'll find out tomorrow when he has to enter and leave the house through the basement door and trudge through the snow (which he DID shovel a path, on the grass, around the house to the driveway) anytime he needs to leave the house.

So, what we did today was: pack up my china cabinet and store it, moved everything out of the foyer closet and the linen closet (since both have contiguous wood floor), removed everything from my kitchen counters and from atop my cabinets, moved my bakers rack out of the kitchen, moved my china cabinet into my middle daughter's room, moved my 8 dining room chairs into my youngest daughters room, moved our kitchen table and chairs into our living room, moved our dining room table into our living room, set up a "mock" kitchen at our bar area in the basement consisting of my coffee pot, the microwave and toaster oven (and a variety of cereals and paper plates/utensils).  Luckily we have a full sized fridge in the basement so that won't be a huge issue.  I have to remove all the artwork from the walls.  I also had to clean out the fridge as they will be moving both the fridge and oven out to finish the floors beneath.  Even though the living room isn't being done, we still needed to remove all the items on the mantel to avoid it being shaken to the floor. The area rug under the dining room was stained beyond redemption (spilled wine/cream wool carpet do  NOT mix), the area rug in the foyer was rolled up to be returned to its place when the job is complete.

For the next 4-5 days we will be living out of our basement. The younger two girls and the husband and I will also have to pack for those 5 days as we will be living in the basement.  Luckily, we have 2 bedrooms a fairly large living area a bathroom and the washer and dryer (and a full sized fridge) down there, so it's much bigger than, say a hotel room, if we were willing to spend the extra money for that.  Then, first thing tomorrow morning I have to take the dog to the kennel.   She is only a main floor dog and we just can't chance her getting upstairs (and there is nothing preventing her from running up).

The process, as it was explained to me, will be them coming in, removing my baseboard trim, sanding the floors.  Then we're adding an extra step.  We are having our floors stained.  Since they are maple, they will need to be 'water popped' in order for the wood to take the stain.  I will have to be here tomorrow morning to approve how dark I want the stain.  They anticipate doing the sanding and staining tomorrow.  Then 3 coats of an oil based poly.  We debated the oil vs water based poly and decided to go with the  oil as it would be more durable.  It would also be a longer time in between applications to dry, making the process about 4-5 days long.  I figured if we were going to be inconvenienced, best to get it done to last longer so we won't have to do this again, at least while the kids are in residence.

When I think of what the floors will look like when this is all done, that (and a case of red wine) makes the inconvenience bearable.  So, let "the great adventure"* begin.


*the great adventure...other wise known as WTH was I thinking