The good stuff

So, I read somewhere that it takes a professional about 10-12 hours to install hardwood in an average sized room. That seemed like a long time. Especially if one is paying said professional by the hour. Which we're not. What we are though, is developing an appreciation for the amount of work an installer has to do. We're maybe one quarter done laying the floor in the hub room. Granted, the first couple of days were fraught with interruptions - expected and welcome. And a little bit of learning - like when you make a mistake, two-inch staples are not the easiest things to remove. Now that we've developed a sense a rhythm, things should go much faster (and people know that this is about the only place I have any chance of developing rhythm...you've seen me dance).

 

If any of you are looking for gift ideas for the man who has everything...get him a new pair of slippers, would you? You can't tell in this photo, but the soles are literally falling off the bottoms of these ones. I'm waiting for him to accidentally staple one to the floor.

    

Me? By the time all is said and done, I'm going to need a new pair of kneepads.

 Our decision on the type of hardwood for the house hinged on a few things. Colour (Norm leans to red), grain (I like lots of variation) and hardness (big dog = harder is better). Based on this, Norm would have picked cherry (not enough grain for me), I would have picked walnut (too soft for the dog) and Rory would have picked, well, he probably doesn't care. In fact, I'm not so sure what we were worried about, since he hardly spends any time actually standing on a floor. Here he is in his "supervisor spot", surrounded by compressors, nail guns, and other stuff. Yeah, oak, maple, whatever. Just make sure it comes in stick shapes.

In case you can't tell, it's tiger wood (closest we could get to a lion for Rory).