Blissous

Did you know that the psychology of perception plays a big role in how happy a person you are?

is the glass half full or half empty?

How you mentally answer that old saw, no matter how it’s framed, can either put a smile on your face or have you down in the dumps.

Wood floors should be installed across the joists.

The great townhouse update is at that half-done, half-chaos point. And honestly, I waver between absolute joy at how fabulous it’s looking and joy crushing overwhelm at what still needs to be done.

Luckily, I’ve been spending more time on the joy side of the answer.

Bamboo floors are done. Can you hear the angels singing? I can.

I mean how can I not. Just look at that gleaming, gorgeous floor.

live, learn, share

Course, with most new experiences comes new wisdom. Here’s a few tidbits I learned during our install that may help you.

installation pattern

The boards should cross your joists. I had toyed with having it put down the other direction — long ways, but the joist issue eliminated that option. No problem, because it looks fab going across the short way. Makes our skinny place look wider. Never thought I’d enjoy a wider looking anything

Carpet dust? Saw dust? Both? It’s all icky.

cover your stuff

Dust will fly — mostly it’s the nasty, icky silt (it’s dead skin cells, you know?) kicked up when ripping out the carpet plus some saw dust from cutting openings for vents, etc.

No one warned me and I didn’t cover anything. The dust from the first day was horrific. At that point, it was too late. I just left it knowing I’d have a massive clean up at the end. And boy did I.

pets

Consider kenneling your animals. Because of the layout of our townhouse community, our actual front door is a hike up a flight of steps, and a long and winding path around two buildings. We affectionately call it the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

The install guys balked at walking around. They wanted to use the garage — which opens into the basement — which is one giant room — which is where I had planned to lock up our two cats.

The only other option was the master bedroom … and that door doesn’t latch securely. One of our cats, the curious one, knows this and has perfected the hooked paw method of escape. I spent three days in the bedroom with a chair in front of the door to thwart our feline Houdini.

Where I really wanted to be was watching the installers and, you know, offer advice. There’s a few spots where I would had done it differently. What? I’m not a control freak

Floor batches are color coded.

dye lots

Check your boxes on delivery.

It’s my understanding that bamboo isn’t dyed per se. It’s heated and the heat is what caramelizes the natural sugars in the grass. Different harvests caramelize at different rates, and the longer it cooks, the darker the color.

See the blue dot and yellow dot on the boxes? That means they’re from different batches. Like dye lots in yarn and fabric, each batch is slightly different. Ours was off quite a bit. The Hubs took four or five yellow dot boxes back to Lumber Liquidators and got blue dot boxes.

It turned out that we didn’t need all of them as we had three full boxes leftover at the end of the job. (Lumber Liquidators took them back and issued a refund with no problem.)

Now only time will tell if the acclimation period makes a difference — since the swapped boxes didn’t spend time getting used to our place.

half-done

The floor on the main level is in. The main level has been painted. And the trim is done.

That’s 760 sq. ft. of our 1500 total square footage done.

Well, except for the main level bathroom … it still needs a new vanity top, mirror and light.

And except for the fireplace … it still needs to be refaced. And the Hubs and I still disagree about what to do about our lopsided mantel.

Oh, but just LOOOOOOK at that floor!