Finished Hardwood Heaven

I meant to post about our finished hardwoods several weeks ago, but the house hasn't been presentable enough for an after shot until now.  It's a curious feeling to be putting toys and junk away while a baby is simultaneously taking them out from the other side...every few hours...every single day... and the existential musings ensue...  

Anywho, I'm a big sucker for before and after pictures.  Particularly the home improvement variety.  So these yummy hardwood floors are just step one in my evil master plan to give our house a facelift.  Soon to come are wainscoting, fresh paint, crown moulding, and actual home decor, weee!

So without further ado, here are the before pics one more time, featuring sad, bubbly linoleum and copious amounts of tragically tan carpet:

And after a good deal of pleasurable power tool usage, some mixed feeling about destroying perfectly adequate carpet, and only occasional swearing (hint: 99% of that didn't come from me...), I give you das hardwood!

 Is this how you place an area rug?  I have absolutely no idea...  This isn't even mine..

And we stinking love it.  It really classes up the joint.  And it surprisingly makes it feel bigger, too--I think that's because we removed the line separating the threshold from living room to kitchen, and the little entryway square.  

And then, since we need to pop that base moulding back on, I got to buy yet another power tool (evil laugh).  And this cordless nail gun ranks up there among my favorite new toys.  It's just scrumptious and did a great job.  And I always used to think, "Why do people bother filling in the nail holes?  Nobody looks down there anyway, and they'd be super tiny.."  But I get it now.  It looks like little bugs on there, which I clearly cannot abide.  So I got some niiiice practice in with a caulk gun, got those nails filled in and the seam along the wall looking prrrrretty good, I'd say.

The main downside with dark floors is that crumbs show up real easily.  And let's say you have a baby who likes to throw 99% of his food on the floor, this would hypothetically equate to sweeping several times a day.  Hint: Baby Jack throws 99% of his food on the floor :/  Grumble grumble grumble...  But we're pretty happy phase one of master plan is finito!