Living Room Redo Part II….

The color of the room seemed the least of our worries as we had so many other things to contend with as it turns out. Our builder, David, who is also a friend of ours, had some leftover bamboo flooring from another job. We did not know a thing about bamboo so we started researching it. Without going into all the minor details of our web hours spent and phone calls made regarding this floor, I will just cut to the chase. This is what we learned.

   If you buy Bamboo flooring from Lowe’s or Home Depot or other said places,  only a fraction of the wood is bamboo. The top layer is bamboo and the rest is something else. Why is that important to know? Because with that type of Bamboo, you can maybe only sand it once if need be! Our builder purchased his at Lumber Liquidators and it is solid Bamboo. This means it could be finished as many as three times….we were told. That was important to us and we liked the idea that it is a green product. No trees had to be chopped down to get this wood. The wood is usually 7 years old before it is processed. It came on the market in the early 90’s with limited options. Now there are many types and the flooring we ended up with is called Natural bamboo. It is supposed to be the hardest of the selections and as hard as oak. It is light in color so it took us by surprise at first but now we love it. Here are some photos…..

This was our first day of floor laying. It comes already pre-finished in the package and it’s really quite beautiful. Each box lot of wood has a slightly different tone to it. We asked David if he would stagger the boards to make it look more interesting. See the bamboo nodes in the wood? I love that! This is the finishing, of the closet floor and a box of Morningstar flooring from Lumber Liquidators. Not an inexpensive floor…about 70.00 a box and we used 7. Actually we were 5 boards short after using 6 boxes!! Here’s the photo…. Can you believe that? My hubby went to LL and asked if they ever get damaged boxes of flooring? The first guy says NO NEVER. The second guy that walked in says NO. The third guy that walked in says….Oh YES….and we have one right over here….cost to us….about 35.00 rather than the standard 70.00!! Hey….we needed 5 boards! This air compressor was soooo loud! The table saw was not quite so loud but Obie hated both of them with a passion! An underlayment of a special paper went down under the bamboo to prevent moisture. Here is one of my favorite photos during the construction. I haven’t seen a floor shine like this in my house since the 80’s!! This was so exciting. Next, we went baseboard shopping. We chose this taller one after much consideration at Lowe’s and Home Depot. It came pre-primed which was wonderful! We painted it Icicle to match the trim on the windows. 

This is the new media cove (old closet), primed, painted, floor installed, tech box recessed, ,most of the outlets are set and baseboards put in……more tomorrow…….I hope you all don’t think less of me for living with such a terrible looking living room for so long.:) We tried to remain grateful throughout this process as renovating can upset your whole household and cause a lot of stress. God is good. He provided for us in every way….every step of the way.