Life in the Circle: Here's the latest project..

Things around the circle have been very busy (which is of course normal) but we have also been painting the walls and installing a new hardwood floor in our dining room. This can help explain my prolonged absence (in addition to the fact that I actually have to do work while at work instead of blogging).

We began our project 2 weeks ago. We tore out the carpeting which was installed by the builder so it came up with almost no effort and our WONDERFUL garbage men took it in one large rolled up piece. Those guys are great and therefore are always on my Christmas list. We then painted the walls a beautiful deep green since we both love color in our house with a classic white ceiling. The trim is bright white as well. We may tackle a chair rail soon, but that won't be before Christmas at least.

We had decided that we wanted to install nail down bamboo (an earth friendly choice since bamboo is a grass that can harvested every 7 years or so). We went and bought all of our supplies, rented a pneumatic floor nailer and away we went. The first row was the hardest since we had to make sure it was perfect and square, but after that the floor sailed along beautifully. It took us about 8 hours to put it in (which includes all of the cutting, laying the padding, etc.). The hardest part was the final rows which had to be hand nailed and let me tell you - bamboo is not a soft wood - just ask the many bent nails in the trash can. Unfortunately when we purchased our wood, we had to order the two finishing pieces for the doorway. They finally came in this past Saturday and I was able to finish nailing down the trim tonight.

Sweetpea can now have her playroom back since the dining room table won't be residing there any longer and I can sweep all of the sawdust from our garage for the last time (until the next project begins). I can say that I am now very experienced in using the miter saw and the jigsaw. Here are some pictures of our dining room