Sunday, April 1, 2007

My cheap husband....

What a weekend we have had!!

The man I am married to (whom I love very dearly) is always on the lookout for a great deal. How he comes up with some of the things he does, I don't think I want to know!!

We have said, from the beginning of our house building process, that we would like to have hardwood floors someday. The builder charges a LOT of money to put them in so we decided to wait for a while and stick with the standard carpeting.

About two weeks ago, Daniel called me from work and told me to look up an item on eBay he was considering buying. To my surprise, the item was hardwood floors in a home off Preston & Royal. The pictures that they showed looked great, and at the time, the bid on the 1200 sq ft of floor was $20. We called the guy last week and he let us go look at them.



They are super nice floors that were originally laid in the 1940s. The previous owners moved in 1-2 years ago and pulled up the carpet to expose the hardwoods underneath. They have sold the house to a developer who is going to tear the house down (tomorrow) and then start from scratch on the lot. Because everything is going to the junkyard, the owner wanted to sell what he could. The only catch....we have to pull up the floors ourselves.

Ever on the lookout for a great deal, my frugal husband bid, and won (for more than 20 dollars), the floors. He watched a Bob Villa video on pulling up hardwood floors, called his brothers to help, asked his parents if we could store the wood at their house, and planned with the owner to start on Sat morning at 845. I think that he thought we would be done by mid-afternoon at the latest.

Daniel, David, Michael, Josh, and Gerry all pulled up boards, while Solomon, Ouida, and I removed nails, loaded all the wood, etc.

I think I will let the pictures tell the story!!








We left there at 700 last night, with a trailer of wood, full of nails. His parents drove the trailer to their house, and D and I went out this afternoon to pull more nails. My wrist is quite sore...I guess I need to do more work with a hammer!! :)





We are still not finished pulling nails. Dan said he thinks we are about 1/2 way through...guess what he will be doing while I am at work this week!!

The floors will stay at Gerry and Ouida's until our house is actually finished and we have a floor to lay them on...

Despite the fact that we had a hard, work-filled weekend, I am really excited about the floors. I think that they will look great once we get them laid and then refinished!! And, of course, what a great story they will be!!

(Side note - I really do love how Dan is always saving money...I just like to give him a hard time about it...he named the post, not me!!)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow Heather!!! You're going to have BEAUTIFUL floors. Hang in there with the mess. You'll just appreciate the floors, your husband, and your entire family of in-laws all the more after this is said and done! :) Now, go get a manicure sometime very soon. You definitely deserve it!

Unknown said...

The floors do look beautiful! Sorry it took you longer than you thought - we've been there! But you will have great memories working on it with his family and they will look great when you get them in your house.

Unknown said...

that looked like SO MUCH WORK, I don't know if I could have done it- but the end result will be beautiful. We missed you guys last night.
Have a good week!

LisaN said...

This post made me laugh so hard because it reminds me of my Dave! This is totally something he would do. In fact, if he sees this post I know it will give him some ideas! We're a ways off from the house stage, but one of these days....

I'm glad your floors will tell such a fun story! You guys will enjoy them and be able to smile about this memory for years to come. :-)

Becky H said...

Wow! This reminded me of the dirt pile in our front yard...but worse. The floors are beautiful though and well deserved. Go Dan!