I hope everyone had a nice Valentines day.  Matt and I went up to the mountains Sunday and skied Vail on Monday.  There is even a trail called Lovers Leap.  However we didn't take that trail, Matt was up for it but I did not want to hurl myself off a cliff.  We did however take a small bottle of champagne with us to celebrate the day.  Isn't it so cute?





Once you have all the little button things out and the riser string out of the center of the unnecessary slats just slid them out to the side.  You will need to take the large bottom slat and move it up to it's new rung.

 I used a little tape to keep the riser cord from fraying and put that back through the hole and button thing.  Pull the riser cords taught and make a knot.  You may need to do some adjustments to keep the bottom level but it doesn't take too long.




Once all the riser cords are tied and even you can trim the excess with the nail trimmers.  Tuck the strings back inside the hole and pop the button back in.


What do you think?  Better, worse, almost the same?

Once you have a patter to your liking I would suggest going over your tape with your base color.  I didn't do that and there are bleed marks.  Oh well, you can't really see them until your right in front of the wall.  But with or without that extra coat of your base color go ahead and paint your accent color over the whole thing.

Then start pulling that tape off the wall.  Once finished it should look something like this.  I think it would also look cool with less contrasting paints.

Well I have finally finished the flooring in our downstairs bedroom.  It looks beautiful! (I would say that even if I didn't do it my self)  And now I am back to finish pointing out the difficulties of laying hardwood flooring on a 45º.  (click here to see part I)


First up, a floor outlet.  We live in a townhouse that has no outlets in the shared walls.  Strange but whatever.  We had to drill holes around them in our living room and the second bedroom.  We bought a circle saw thing from home depot that is just a little bigger than the housing for the outlet and taped the 2 boards together with painters tape that would surround the outlet and drilled/cut the holes.  Easy Peasy.  But this time it was a little more difficult to measure the location of the outlet with the angle thrown in the mix.  So to begin, I cut my 45º on both boards to go up next to the wall, and tapped them together.  And I also started marking out where the outlet would be.  (this is so hard to explain and put into words)  


Now I needed to measure the distance from the wall to the far side of the outlet.  I used the same t ruler thing and a speed square.  The distance is 44cm.  (I don't usually use the metric system, only when that is the side of the ruler I need at the time)  Turn the ruler around and mark 44cm on the tape.  Now repeat for the other sides and that will give me a square!











Now I just need to get some base boards to finish off this project.  What do you think?  Would you ever try to install hardwood flooring on a 45º angle?

It's been a while since Matt and I have worked on some hardwood flooring.  We purchased 44 boxes of hardwood flooring when we purchased our home last July.  We put hardwood flooring in the living room, dining room, Matt's son's bedroom, and our bedroom.  After all that we still have 9 boxes left.  Originally we were planning to do the kitchen as well but decided to tile that room instead.  What to do with the left over?  Well, do another room.  We have a small bedroom thats off the living room right by the front door.  And since it's right off the living room we decided to change the direction of the wood so we don't have to worry about everything being straight.  Anyway, here's the progress so far.  (With some tips that I've figured out.)
 I also had a heat vent to work around almost right away.  I measured and marked the wood with a square, then used a jig saw, and miter saw to make the cuts.




Work your way out into the room.  I found that if you make 3 separate beginning pieces with 45º angle cuts and work your way to the other end, but leave the last piece open, you can work with 3 rows at a time, you will be switching your miter angle less ofter and saving yourself time.