We’re floored, and barred from our “kitchen”

For the first time in 87 years, all of the floors on the first and second story of our house are oak:

If you expand the photos, you can see the beauty. We had been theoretically fine with mocking the oak with well-stained pine, but we are so incredibly happy with this improvement once in place. Installing the oak floors not just improved how it looked, but by removing the old floors, we removed decades of grime, poor craftsmanship, and soundproofed by dozens of decibels.

The new oak floor was installed yesterday and today, refinishers sanded down those and the original oak floors in the mudroom and hallway between the old, second back door and the (now removed) pantry.

But we only found out that work would be happening at 7 a.m. today after half a cup of coffee. That meant we had to immediately empty the mudroom of all the stuff stashed in there since the project began in early April, including winter coats. It had been covered in plastic to protect from damage from demo and wall construction, so we hustled everything out and decided that the jury-rigged bench that had been installed before we moved in—we don’t know when—would have to go. The bench and cubbies didn’t really fit into the space and were very difficult to keep clean, even though we had repainted the room and shelves several years ago. J2 arrived by about 8 and helped us massively by sawing out the bench that connected the towers and removing them. (Followed by my frantic cleaning of walls before the floor guys arrived. The dirt and dust hidden between the shelves and the walls was good enough reason to get rid of them!

By nuking those, however, we have to rethink how we will furnish the space. But it was also a fairly easy (if last-minute) decision because how we use the room will change because the entrance to the new 3/4 bath is opposite the green wall in the photo below (with the white splotch where we broke some plaster removing hook anchors from the wall). In this picture, you can see the refinished floor in the mudroom and the old paint color of the wall that we couldn’t get to when the bench was installed:

We are restricted from walking on the floor for at least 8 hours, so until we wake up in the morning initially. Then when they complete the finish, we won’t be able to walk on the floor until Monday so the finish can cure. I realized just before the floor guys arrived that fact would mean we wouldn’t be able to get to our basement “kitchen” setup—including the refrigerator—for days, so we had to move the necessities somewhere. Honestly, we’re glamping now.

It was, shall we say, a very busy morning.

And then another very loud, smelly day. I mean LOUD. Their last step of the day was quiet, but noxious as they spread the initial sealant. We’re very lucky that it’s a beautiful evening we can spend outside while the sealant dries. Tomorrow and Thursday, the crew should finish finishing the floors. Then we have a long weekend to recover, while glamping.

Next week, the drywall crew will come back to finish the job they were waived off from when the floor construction began. As I noted in the photo caption above, you can, for example, see how close-but-not-quite they are to finishing the wall that replaces the old powder room door. In the photo below, you can see how the kitchen is shaping up:

All of this effort means we are, typically, behind grand plans, but getting much closer to a new kitchen and 3/4 bath. Because that means the reno will then move to the work on the master bathroom on the second floor, we have to finally finish our work removing decades of paint and wallpaper in the master bedroom. We began that project during the first summer of the Covid pandemic and found the original wallpaper from 1936 (in the photo below). We have to finish that work—which is massive given the size of the room and the incredible number of layers of paint and wallpaper—because we will be removing a small closet in the bedroom to expand the master bath behind it. When the crew replaces the doorway with a wall, and installs a new door to the extended closet nearby, at least that wall must be ready to finish. We’re therefore on “vacation” next week to work on bedroom walls. Whee!