OK - so i had to pull up about 80 sq ft up of the flooring last night - that was a ton of fun. Turns out the sub floor was pretty uneven in spots - especially at the top of the stairs. when they built the joint they hodge podged some plywood to make it all work. this turns out to cause problems with the flooring slats, specifically ill fitting joints. I was worried if this was not perfect it would get icky over the coming years. So i pulled it up and used a belt sander to get it more level and reinstalled it last night. We need to go buy more material now - need about another 80 sq ft. We also need to return the planks that have blemishes - that ended up being about two boxes full out of 25 total. hope to get it finally wrapped up tonight.

OK, again a long pause, to my readers at least the most important one [you know who you are] I apologize.

It has been quite a week. We had the loss of a President. Here at home we got an old friend back from Baghdad and for that we are very greatful! That friend is getting married in August in Puerto Rico and Andrea just bought our plane tickets - OH YEA!

The other big thing in the household these days has been the installation of new flooring. We tore up the old nappy carpet and demo'ed the old lanolium floor and backer board. That was nasty. The sub floor was kinda jacked in some spots but we moved forward without too much time spent on making it better. There are a couple tricky spots but didn't think it was worth tearing a bunch out. The kitchen, dining room and living room is about 410 sq ft and we are about 75% done laying the new floor there. We also have completed the hallway. Here is a link to the stuff we are laying. We went with engineered panels so we could install ourselves then chose the laminate because it actually looks really good and it shoulf wear little better in the kitchen and with the dogs. Overall install has gone ok, just have to be very careful with the suckers as you install as they are very fragile.