Construction project

The hubster and I are DIYers somewhat by default.  Neither of us has the skill/patience/knowledge to do major work on our house ourselves.  But we are very fortunate that my dad and my uncle have a lot of experience building houses and doing major renovation work on existing structures.  A couple years ago we started work on our unfinished basement.  So far we've only done one room, a study, but hope to eventually finish the rest of it, with a full bathroom, family room, exercise room, storage room and laundry room.

We also built a large shed outdoors when we first moved here, since there is no garage and we needed some place to put tools and equipment.

Our current project is ripping up all the existing carpet in our house and installing new laminate floors.  (Five years and two or three dogs at any time can really do a number on carpets!)  At first we had considered refinishing the hardwood underneath, but we found it to be in much worse condition than we had hoped, and installing new floors was going to be both more cost-efficient and more aesthetically pleasing.  Thus, the new floors.

Over the past couple days the men-folk have finished the hallway and the nursery, with the exception of the floor trim pieces that will be cut and installed tomorrow.  Then we'll move all the nursery furniture back, move out the furniture from our spare bedroom, rip up the carpet in that room, and start again.  :)  I'm absolutely loving the new floors!!!  I'm so thankful to have family with the kind of skills that make things like this possible on a budget.  Can't wait to see the finished product.  :)  In the mean time, here are some pics in progress.

New floor compared to the underlying hardwood.  The existing hardwood has a lot of surface damage, as well as being warped in some places, so it looks like some of the pieces would actually have to be replaced.  Not good, and definitely not cheap.

Old carpet, old hardwood underneath the carpet, and the new floors.  I think the new floors are a pretty nice improvement!