Sawdust Dreams

Happy, happy New Year!! I hope 2012 finds you rested and as fresh as a squeaky clean shower after watching 'Hoarders'. Submerse yourself in whatever creative bliss that lifts your spirits and makes you feel good. As for me, I'm hoping to find some peace in a new creative space and actively pursuing one particular word...SIMPLIFY. Right after we're done remodeling our home.

Our house has been in some sort of remodeling phase since we bought this "starter" home over 12 years ago. As a young, naive, newly married couple my husband and I bought this cottage by the lake with huge, ambitious dreams of what we could turn it into. We laugh now because we're pretty sure once our families saw this gem they were wondering when the bulldozer and wrecking crew would arrive.

About 2 years ago we turned on the full court press to get this house done. Added on a garage and small addition for a new laundry, mudroom and bathroom. Gutted the kitchen. Tore all the carpet out of the main floor and replaced it with hardwood. Since we already had hardwood original to the home in the living room we added unfinished wood to the rest of the main floor so it could all be finished the same. That brings you to our most current project and the one we have been DREADING the most:

Sanding and staining the wood floor that covers 90% of the main floor...and LIVING in our home at the same time...with 3 kids.

This wonderful contraption is what is making refinishing the floor much nicer this time. And the two men that came with it to run it aren't a bad deal either! We rented a sander and refinished this floor right after we bought the house and I think we still cough up sawdust. This beauty makes all that mess seem like a distant nightmare. {To accurately describe how awful refinishing a wood floor is I will compare it to having a baby. It took me a little over a year to "forget" about labor and get pregnant for another child. It took us 12 years to think about this laborious task again!}

Here are the many stain colors that we sampled. I'll let you know in my next post which one made the cut.

This picture is the best way to visually depict the way I feel after living in a remodeling project for almost 2 straight years. I have named this picture "The Kade's" and debated sending it out as our Christmas card.

Getting there...a snippet of the new kitchen, new front door and part of the new wood floor. Yes, that is two more stain samples on the floor in the kitchen. No, I'm not afraid of mixing stain colors. Variety is the spice of life. {Excuse the cluttered mess on the counter. That's what happens when almost every piece of furniture is in the garage. I bet you didn't have to go to your garage this morning to get clean socks! :)}

And now you know why I chose the word "Simplify".

Blessings, Lori