Hardwood

Before attempting DIY projects, we try to crowdsource our friends to see what their experiences were like. Exposing a brick wall? DIY. Moving? Let the experts handle it. Painting? DIY. Refinishing hardwood floors? Like building an Ikea bookshelf, a surefire relationship ender.

The experts we called in said that we didn't have the worst hardwood floors in Pittsburgh, which was a terrible downgrade from when the sewer inspection guy said we had the best pipes in the city. Bruised egos and all, we forged on and took the crowd's advice - pay the pros.

There is no sub-floor under the hardwood, which wasn't a huge problem, but every person who gave us a quote noted it as something to consider reevaluating in the future - that the current floor turn into a sub-floor someday. It also meant that we had to put drop clothes over everything in the basement to protect the things down their from dust and laminate drippings during the project.

Hey, remember these days?

One vendor told us that our floors wouldn't be pristine, but rustic when they were done. That is a pretty fair word to use.

It's hard to believe that someone would want to cover up these beauties with glue and carpet and nails, but I guess that's what trends will do to a house. At least the wallpaper craze never hit this abode.