Hardwood flooring Faux pas....

So it has been a busy couple weeks around the Farmhouse.  We've been dealing with drywall delays, returning of tub faucets, a nasty cough circulating through our house, and my husband and I had our 5 year anniversary!  In 5 years, we have added two baby girls, 2 businesses, almost completed the Farmhouse of our dreams, and have successfully managed to double the mice population of Saunders County inside the walls of our current home.

 

Not too shabby if you ask me.

 

Anyways, instead of the usual anniversary date night consisting of rummaging through my closet in hopes of finding a cute outfit that isn't covered in paint splatters or bakery stains, and also is not one of the many old maternity shirts that still grace the dark corners of my closet, all to go overeat at some overpriced restaurant, we opted for a more productive, construction related venture....

 

Building our fireplace surround!

My husband's mom offered to take the girls overnight so we could enjoy ourselves, and we were off to get our build on!

But more on the fireplace surround tutorial tomorrow...

 

Originally, we had decided we were going to start laying our hardwood floors upstairs, but unfortunately, the drywallers are still not done (shocking), and their many random gadgets, buckets, and ladders still occupy every corner of our home.  They said we could start anyways, and to just lay down cardboard over our finished areas, but that just seemed like too much work to me, and for once, I felt like that would be getting ahead of ourselves. That inconvenience aside, did I mention that we have had our hardwood flooring stored in the basement for months now, but never opened a box until 3 days ago to take a peak? 

 

Yes it's true.

And guess what? The floors I spent weeks and weeks and weeks researching and picking out, are too dark.

 

And I'm talking DARK.

 

Nearly black, kind of dark....

 

Midnight in a cave full of black bats, kind of dark...

 

Marianas Trench kind of dark...

 

 Stephen Hawking would write a thesis about it, kind of dark...

 

(ok that last one is a stretch, but you get the point)

 

Let's just say, the sample in the store must have been slightly faded from the sun or something, because I NEVER would have ordered floors this dark.  All I could see when my husband sent me this text picture was my Swiffer Sweeper budget going through the roof.

 

See?

 

 

 Plus, they are shiny... also not my taste.

 

So after my initial panicked stricken reaction to the dark and shiny floor reveal wore off, I calmly turned to my husband and said...

 

"How mad would you be if I tried to find a lighter floor and we returned these?"

 

Keep in mind, he about flipped his lid when I exchanged a bathroom light fixture at Lowes for a different style.

 

I half expected him to off me right then and there... but I think asking him on our stress-free, kid-free anniversary date saved me.  His reaction?

 

"Babe, that's a whole lot of flooring... and those boxes are heavy, and there's about 40 of them, and we are ready to start installing flooring in about a week."

 

Then I said (batting eyelashes and looking all sweet and cute-ish),

 

"I know...but I don't like them. They are just too dark and I don't want to regret installing them because we were too lazy to put forth the effort to load them back up and return them.  I'll load them all if I have too..."

 

He said,

 

"Ha, yeah right. You'll break your back. You owe me!"

Me (shocked that he agreed),
 

"I can live with that!"

 

So the urgent hunt began and needless to say, after much looking, internet researching and hassling the Lumber liquidators salesman, we finally found the hardwood we really loved that is a nice warm medium tone, with just enough hand scraping and rustic appeal while still being classy and lovely.

 

I give you, Astoria Birch.

 

 

Much better. Much MUCH better.

 

Lovely wide planks of varying lengths that aren't too warm, aren't too cool, with perfectly placed scratches and scuffs, and that definitely say "Farmhouse".

 

It wasn't so easy though. After one salesman at Lumber Liquidators told me that I was out of luck, and that all of the Astoria Birch in the whole United States was taken, I was feeling defeated and that I may in fact be stuck with the oil spill flooring.  The next day, because I am a huge pain in the keister for whatever reason, I decided to call back and ask if they could double check ONE MORE TIME, and low and behold, he managed to find out that their store in Oklahoma City will be getting a large shipment of this floor the first week of March!

 

Triumph!

 

In hindsight, this miracle may have happened because I threatened to return all of the flooring we had already purchased, and it's amazing what kind of miracles can happen when a company risks losing a sale...

 

We aren't super thrilled about the delay in flooring installation, but we will take what we can get, and in all honesty, the drywall may not be done by then anyways, so what's the rush?

 

Fireplace Surround Pictorial tomorrow!

 

 

:)Ashley