The Swap is Complete! Install Day Drama, The Reveal, & Our Primary Bedroom
The road to get hardwood on the third floor of our house was a bumpy one, it was well worth it. I LOVE them! Both Casey and I also agreed that keeping carpet on our stairs was a wise decision - not only does it add some variety, but it provides soundproofing and safety when running up and down the stairs.
I think I have definitely kept you waiting long enough, so, check out the Before / After!!!
OK, let’s back it up to the install day. I am not a morning person, but the installers were supposed to arrive in Richmond between 8a and 10a, so I left South San Jose at around 6:30a to drive up and be here to wait for them. We had received our keys on a Friday, and they came in on Monday morning to start work on our third floor. To paint the picture - we had no furniture, no wifi, no refrigerator (so no food), and just a whole bunch of unopened boxes in the house.
So there I am at 8a waiting for the installers to arrive, and they didn’t get there till 10:30a. 😒 My frustration aside, they began by ripping up all the carpet, and removing it from the house. They also had to take off the baseboard so they could lay down the planks.
Next, they unloaded the wood, leaving some planks to be cut in the garage while others were carried up to the third floor. This team seemed like they were in a rush the whole time. I would only later come to find out that “Crew 1” had to lay down all the wood in one day and “Crew 2”, that came over the next day, was the clean-up crew.
In their rush to complete the install in one day, the first team punched a hole in our stairwell wall with one of the planks. Ouch! It hurt to see our brand new house get damaged like that. Their nonchalant attitude towards it was even harder to comprehend. I kept trying to ask if they would be responsible for fixing it, and they told me I had to work with customer service to figure it out.
They cut all the planks to size, cleaned the subfloor, applied glue to it, began to lay down the planks, and hammering them into place. Then they put little pieces of wood along the perimeter of the rooms, separating the wood from the wall (where the baseboard would eventually be replaced). This whole process took about 8 hours. Then, at 8:30p, they began to wipe down all the floors and clear out of the house. Before they left they let me know that a single piece of stair nosing (for the top step) had not been ordered, that it was backordered, and would only arrive in mid-October.
The next day, Crew 2 showed up to replace the baseboard, fill in the gaps, and paint. This team was equipped to patch up the wall where a hole had been punched the day before, and while they tried their best, it really didn’t look the same as before.
So like I said, the road was a bumpy one, but as we began to furnish and live in our new space, good feelings started to replace those other ones — and now it’s a story to share with all of you!
Our primary bedroom - really coming together 😊
