Stripping

Hey guys!!! Ugh. Anyone ever refinished hardwood floors? Thank goodness we only have one room to do, I would hate to do a whole house.

Last night we ran the Rudolph Red Nose 5K right before the Nashville Christmas parade. It was fun, I finished in 24:22 which I'm not entirely happy about. I got 4th out of 44, which sucks. I'd rather be 10th or 15th, anything other than 4th. The awards afterward took so long we missed most of the parade, which also sucked. But, we did have a highly entertaining time at the parade and took some seriously funny pictures. (I swear I am SUCH a midget!! What's up with that????) Anyway, you'll just have to wait on the race report, parade report, and the awesome pics because I am ZONKED and need a shower like a mutha. And Nashville - you should be so proud to have us. We are the life of EVERY parade.

Today we had some yummy eats from the bakery for breakfast and then started in on Project # 3,232,451. We moved all of the furniture out of our bedroom - totally freaking Pippin out. He thinks we're moving again, I think. He did find his Kong, and we were both pretty happy about that. Those things aren't cheap. From there we ripped the carpet up, then the nasty carpet pad and that's pretty much when the fun ended. There's really only one bad spot of flooring. About 5 boards are sunk, one broken. They put CONCRETE on top of them before they put the carpet down. The other thing that sucks - the floors are painted. We called the guy we bought the house from to see if he had ended up with any extra boards from the house he's been redoing. He has also had to work with the painted floors and has recommended stripping them because the rental sanders get really bogged down with the paint. The paint could also be lead based, so it's probably best to strip anyway. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. (We've been wearing respirators rated for lead paint and goggles, so we are being very safe. We're such grown ups.) Did I say 'ugh'??? The rest of the day has been spent with the annoying, pain staking task of pulling up all the tiny little carpet tacks/staples. It just makes you want to set a fire to the room. Which we sort of almost did with one of the plug ins sunk in the floor but major crisis was averted. Pippin spent the entire day sitting on the other side of the sealed door crying and whining. I need a doggy respirator for him (he already has boots!)

So, the room is all cleared and ready for phase 2: stripping. It actually already smells INFINITELY better in there. That carpet was so old and musty, and bothered our allergies like crazy. Now the room smells like an old house, which is perfect! I will be SO glad when this project is over. And as tired as I am I remind myself that a) it's really in much better shape than I expected and b) luckily it's only one room!! We took some camera phone pics from today that Brent posted below.

So, off to shower and then to an art opening. Yeah!! And then, we get to try out the guest room for the first time! If only someone was coming to see us in January to run an ultra?!?!?