floors finally DONE!

After several days of staining, waiting, applying polyurethane, waiting, and applying another coat of polyurethane, the floors are finally done and look fantastic!! After the staining, I must admit, we were happy with the color, but I was a little nervous as to how good they would actually look. But as soon as the poly went on, we were relieved and ecstatic! Everything smoothed out and shined up... Here is the finished product.

Deron in his room... he can finally walk around in the house now!

The front room. We got a little messy in here as you can see, but our plan is to paint the baseboards anyway. And we still need to put quarter-inch molding throughout the house.

Pretty floors!

Pretty floors in the sun! :)

Deron's room again.

Now, we tackle the closet system in the master bedroom. As you can see, this is a very small closet (5'7" wide to be exact)... roughly the same as what we have now, but we needed more hanging space desperately. More to come!

Happy New Year

As the stain dries I have been contemplating the last year and the tremendous changes that have taken place... entering into the blessed life, triggered by a book entitled that by Robert Morris (Erin, a must read), Philip being blessed with a job that not only fulfills his desires to provide for his family, but leadership that encourages his God-given talents and abilities to blossom and mature in exceedingly great ways. We have bought a house that was an answer to fervent prayer. And not only that, but God has provided ways to furnish it in ways we prayed for. He even provided money to buy Christmas presents! Now, how great is that? We have seen the Almighty provide for us over and over and over again this year... in ways even when our faith lacked. He truly has His eye and heart on blessing His children and seeing them happy and fulfilling their destiny to be great! We ARE His children in whom He is well-pleased.

It amazes me though to see myself, right in the midst of tremendous blessing and abundant grace, missing the heart of the One who created my innermost being. I have a new passion to get back to seeing His beauty in the world around me. To wait for His hand to move across His people and become overwhelmed by His presence. To seek the warmth of His Spirit. I want to prioritize waiting on Him and sitting at His feet. I miss the days of being so in love with the Almighty that it makes me cry. But those days are here again. My heart is beginning to pant again for the water that flows from my Maker. And it is so good. It is so good...

staining

Sunday after finishing sanding, vacuuming really thoroughly and then mopping, we decided to stain the floors. This wasn't a long process at all, but a huge payoff visually. Previously, you might have thought the floors were pretty nice without stain (as they were originally). They were fine with just a varnish, but we wanted them darker. Darker hardwood floors were the idea when we decided on paint colors in the beginning. One problem we encountered was that Lowe's only had 4 quarts of the stain we wanted. Even the other Lowe's in town were completely out of stock. We did get a small discount, but we had to be sure that that was enough for the whole space. God is so good. We ended up with EXACTLY enough. Not too much, not too little.

Gloves for staining.

The color of stain: English Chestnut. Pretty.

The first swipe.
Katy: "Wow, that is quite darker, isn't it."

Deron's room all done. And a dirty camera lens apparently.

Master bedroom in the process.

I decided to give it a try.

I actually thought it was kinda fun. Call me an artsy fartsy...

Pre and post.

Almost done!!

New stain down the hall. (don't worry, I didn't walk on it.)

English chestnut on red oak floors.

more hard work - sanding

Saturday we decided to tackle sanding the hardwood floors. It took a lot more time and "elbow grease" (as my mom would say) than we were expecting, but thankfully that step is over and we will be able to enjoy these floors and this house very soon! One major hurdle: I guess because the floors are older, the sander (despite 3 times over with decreasing grits) wouldn't get between all of the planks (or the sides and corners... but we kind of expected that).

The sander. Very heavy, but didn't do as good of a job as we were expecting.

A shot of one of the discolored spots in the hallway. We were counting on being able to sand enough to get under it.

Pre-sand.

Let's do it!

Post-sand. Pre-vacuum and mop. And Philip's jeans. Cool.

The discolored spot in the hallway. It mostly came up, but we weren't completely successful. I think the stain will cover it.


The clean and mopped floor.

Deron... such a trooper. We had to contain him when we started staining. He can climb out of the pack'n'play, but he knew better. He's had many days of no naps and late nights. And still smiling!