Project: Floors and Baseboards

When we moved into our house way back, oh, nearly 11 years ago, we pulled up the carpet and exposed the original parquet hardwood floors. They were in terrible shape, but we preferred that to the "renter" carpet that had been in place for the last several years.

But two rooms, the back bedroom and the office, gave us problems. The bedroom's hardwood had been removed at some point, so we had to put carpet in (we couldn't afford the cost or time it would have taken to put in hardwood). And the floor in the office was so bad we felt we'd have to put carpet back in.

We finally got around to putting hardwood in the bedroom and refinishing the floors in the office. Some before and afters:

 Above: Office, just look at that floor. Ick. Below, the girls room, with the 11 year old carpet and original baseboards:

 Above, a closet we added during the remodel. That's laminate floor in there. Below, the original closet in the bedroom with the some original floor they didn't tear out.

And so that was "then" -- And here's now! We did the "demo" work -- tearing out the old carpet, tack strip, staples, and baseboards. The floor guys put in the floors (PROTIP: If you're a contractor, send your A team to work on a house, or let the homeowners know you're sending the scrubs in. Some people would prefer to pay a bit more to secure your full attention and/or skill set.). Then we put in the baseboards ourselves. We bought a really cool electric brad nailer and my wife did all the installation while I did the cutting in the back yard. Worked like a charm. We did the two rooms in maybe 5 hours, with several breaks. Easy!

 And here below was the only real tricky part, that's a 45 degree corner, so each of those angles on the baseboard is 22.5 degrees. This was our first and only attempt. Got it close enough that a tiny bit of filler in the gap was all we needed.

 And the girls' room. More of the same (another 45 degree corner) with two closets and a 13 foot wall, this one took longer, but it all came together and the kids are thrilled with their new floor.