The Floor

(I don't know why I struggle with home improvement posts so much. There are at least three I should have done already but they all present such mental roadblocks. I have no idea why.)
I promised a post about the new floors and then Cheeta decided I needed to sleep a lot more than I had been.
(I can blame this kid for so much - even before he's born!)
And I forgot all about September.
And half of October too.
So here we are.
The story goes like this; when Tarzan and I bought this house (12!! years ago) it was through a program called Teacher-Next-Door where the government would pay for half the cost of the house if the teacher (also available for police officers & fire fighters) would live in the low-income area where they work. We applied, and were accepted. We were offered this house and were granted a small construction loan to fix it. (Fill in bullet holes, clean out the drug paraphernalia, add in toilets and cabinets and things.)
Interestingly - to me - we were allowed to add in carpet and vinyl tile but not hardwood floors.
So we had carpet, fully intending to change it out at a later date.
12 years later, we still had carpet.
The same carpet.
And despite cleaning and shampooing multiple times over the years it just wasn't looking good: 

So this spring - when we found out about Cheeta - we got it together, visited the local home improvement store, picked a color and set an installation date. First we had to pack up nearly everything in the house, because the installers would help us move furniture but personal stuff was on us:

One never knows how much stuff one has until one has to pack it up:

12 years of stuff.
We threw out, donated, sold, gifted and reorganized a lot of it but it took a good part of the summer. Then we had to wait 24 hours for the floor to acclimate:

The guys came on time - I felt bad, there were only two of them, but it was still a mild summer at that point which helped - and got right to work:

I think they did a good job:

Tools of the trade:

Tarzan helped:

He was very intent on knowing what went where and why:

Tongue and groove baby:

It was a fairly quick process, all told, about 12 hours, but the kicker has been putting all the stuff back. Thank goodness for ATL and her love of organizing!
We still aren't complete and we need some rugs, and probably a table for the living room still, but it's getting there.
It's a lot lighter in the house than it used to be:

This is me (us) with some new flooring.