New Flooring

One of the reasons we decided to buy this condo (as opposed to some other homes we viewed) was because we thought it was time for a break from home improvement projects. They can be frustrating expensive divorce-material fun and all, but we wanted to spend our free time doing other things (fun things for Ryan, dissertation-writing for me). Built in 2005, this place is still in very nice shape and wouldn't require much upkeep. Unfortunately I overlooked one little thing: the previous residents had cats. And I'm allergic.

After five months of sniffles and approximately 5,647 boxes of tissues, I decided that unless I wanted to spend our entire tenure in this condo feeling yucky (and risking developing asthma), the carpet had to go.

Never really having been a fan of [off] white carpet in a dining area, I was all to happy to replace the living/dining area carpet with laminate flooring. In the bedrooms we're having new carpet put in that's almost identical to what was there (economy won-out over any exciting colors).

Before we left on our trip we ripped up the carpet and Ryan, his dad, and my brother installed the new laminate downstairs. With all that help it only took two days to install (the trim still isn't back in place, but that detail doesn't keep us from using most of our space). The new flooring is good stuff and I'm really happy with it.

In the few days since we got back from our trip I have felt so much better - I can already tell most of the cat dander is gone. I can now remember what it was like before I had to blow my nose every two minutes. We've also washed the walls in the bedrooms just for good measure and are having the heating vents cleaned next week. I look forward to many years of waking up able to breath through my nose!

We just have to get through this last furniture/stuff shuffle when the carpet installers get here at the unholy hour of 7:00 tomorrow morning (a Saturday!). Today I learned just how much stuff will fit into our washer/dryer closet: