Regrets

I never said I would only share my successes on this blog, so here it goes.

When we bought this house, one of the big selling points for me was that there were "hardwoods underneath!!" the less-than-a-year-old carpets. Since they were covered with carpets, I always assumed they would need some refinishing, and I was actually happy about that. I prefer my wood floors to be a shade or two darker than the traditional oak or maple stains. But when house hunting, there's really no good way to check out the state of the hardwoods under the carpet. You really have to get down on your knees and pull up corners and realtors (and sellers) kind of look down on that kind of behavior. Additionally, just a peek in the corner of the room doesn't tell you anything about the true state of the floors.

Case in point: the downstairs powder room. As I mentioned here, there is carpet in every room except the upstairs bathroom, which includes the kitchen and downstairs bathroom. I've pulled up a corner in the kitchen, and unfortunately there's some pretty gross laminate there. A few weeks ago, I pulled up a corner of the shag (yes, shag) in the bathroom. The corner looked GREAT. It was a maple color, which I can live with, and I could tell that the boards were about 1 1/2 inches wide. Not the most exciting find, but I was itching to get the carpet out from around the toilet. So I put the girls down for their long afternoon nap and started pulling.

I'm really hoping that this isn't a foreshadowing of what we will find when we pull up the carpet in the rest of the house. Not only is there paint rings and splotches on the wood, but there are gaps between the boards. And the boards are a tiny bit cupped (the boards don't lay flat--the edges are higher than the middle) and the boards at the base of the toilet are in REALLY bad shape. In fact, I'm not even showing you a picture of the boards around the toilet. And I stuck carpet back around those boards for now.


A large part of me really does regret pulling up the carpet. Every time I see the floor in this bathroom, my heart sinks and my stomach tightens up just thinking about the possible expense and frustration of having to put in ALL NEW hardwoods throughout the house. This makes for a lot of running upstairs to go to the bathroom (helping lose some of the leftover twin weight, perhaps?).

On the other hand, at least now I know what our future may bring. Now I know to spend some more time saving up for new floors  instead of rushing into the renovation and being surprised with thousands of dollars of unexpected expenses. And it does give me a good excuse to go out and buy a new bathroom rug. One just the right size to fill the floor, except that one nice looking corner.