New Kitchen Floor

Kevin is a  gifted person.  He is an engineer like I am, so is good at the math/science stuff.  He is also very good with his hands. I am not.  I am especially not good at home improvement projects.  Thankfully, he is!  As a high school student, he worked construction for a couple of summers and picked up many useful skills. He also has the confidence to tackle new projects, and is meticulous about reading directions and learning necessary skills for said projects.

So a couple of weeks ago, Kevin decided that he should put a new floor in the kitchen. The old floor was 7 years old and when he put it in he was thinking it would be somewhat temporary.

Now, I admit to a little twinge of concern about a new project RIGHT NOW.  What if the baby showed up in the middle of the project?  But knowing Kevin, it didn't seem likely. He said it would not be a really long job, and when he has a project he is completely focused. He is not one of those people who starts a project and leaves it half done.  It gets done even if he has to stay up 'til 2:30 a.m. to finish it.

Which is exactly what happened.

Thursday evening, he did some preparatory work.

Friday evening after dinner, he started working:

The new flooring is darker.

He toiled and toiled and toiled. I went to bed.  I woke up at 2:30 a.m. to use the bathroom and he was still not in bed, so I went downstairs to check on him. He was just finishing up the main floor.

Unfortunately, he was just a bit short on tile so he left part of the pantry undone.  On Saturday, he bought more tile and finished up the pantry.

Sunday, he put the trim back on, and added some baseboard under the cabinets.

Voila, complete!!

We had to move everything off the pantry floor, of course.  All that food resided in the corner of the dining room for a few short days, to Sarah's delight.  Of course, when Kevin moved everything back in (with the children's help) he was very organized.  The pantry hasn't looked this good in a LONG time.

All done!  It looks great!