Basement project: replacing the flooring

Barrett and I talked with our landlady a few months back about the need for new carpet and new paint in our basement apartment. Our landlady decided that she wanted to replace the carpet with wood laminate and also the kitchen with tile laminate. She also mentioned painting the walls a different color. Barrett and I volunteered to do the work since we like the idea of having the experience and doing it on our own time. Little did we know what we were getting ourselves into :). That's how it always goes with home projects. So we've taken some before and after pictures of the flooring we replaced. Keep in mind that by the time flooring was chosen and delivered Barrett only had two weeks left before school started and we had a friend trip planned one of the weekends.

We pulled up the carpet in the living room, bedroom, and hall and found this awesome tile!

It's kind of hard to tell but there is pinkish-beige and a tealish-green laminate. I told Barrett that styles often come back in years later and that maybe we should keep the floor in case it is stylish soon. Barrett didn't like that idea.

This was what the kitchen floor already looked like, but we took off the baseboard and it left this sticky-black mess. As we took off the wood baseboards around the rest of the house we determined that it was no longer re-usable. That was added to the painting we need to do after the floor.

After a long night of Barrett and my dad's hard work we had a new kitchen floor!

Barrett had just finished the last end of the floor and left to play basketball for the night. I went to bed early and he came home around 11:30 and went to bed. At 3:30 in the morning I woke up and vaguely heard dripping. Once I realized what I was hearing I bolted up and told Barrett that I thought something was leaking. We went to the kitchen and found the brand new kitchen floor completely flooded! Before Barrett could do the kitchen floor he had to replace the valve to turn off the water to our ice-maker. The new tube worked perfectly fine the whole time we were awake, but at sometime while we were asleep popped off and the water flowed. We still don't know what happened and have not hooked the ice-maker back up, because we would rather not chance it again and don't want/have the time to figure it out. So we spent a few days propping up the floor with chairs and sliding old baseboard under the floor so we could have a loud fan going all day and night to dry it out. Regardless of the immediate disappointment and the patience of letting it dry, it went back together without any problems and we were able to start on the wood laminate.

Thanks to the many hours Barrett, his dad and brothers, and Barrett's friend, Alex, put in we finished the floor before Barrett started school. Here is the finished product in the living room, bedroom, and hall.

We (and our landlady) love the new floor! The first thing I did once the floor was finished was dust! I never knew I hated dust so much. After living in it for a few weeks I couldn't wait to dust everything in sight. We have not had a chance to start the painting or baseboards so those pictures will come in future blog posts. If anybody has suggestions of where to buy inexpensive rugs let us know. Despite how nice the floor looks, it has made our apartment look a little more boring. But that makes finding bold rugs more fun! Until next episode of "Basement project" enjoy the floor photos...