Remodeling -ling -ling -ling

I have a rule on this blog: I don't talk about work.

I really want to break that rule right now.

But I won't.

So instead I'll talk about remodeling. Because I'm a 30-something homeowner, and that's what we talk about.

When my home was built back in the '80s, the original buyers opted for wood floors downstairs. Mostly. They had all of the downstairs done in wood, except for one area of the combination living room/dining room. I guess the theory was that they wanted to have the "living room" portion done in carpet, while the rest was in wood. When I bought this place, the realtor suggested that I could get the carpet replaced with wood.

Eight years later, it was time to do it.

The (hot!) contractors arrived this morning, and spent most of the day installing the wood. Now it needs to sit for two weeks so that the moisture level of the wood reaches equilibrium with the house.

The next step is that they will refinish the entire downstairs. Fortunately, I'm going on vacation in two weeks, so they will be able to refinish the downstairs while I'm gone. If I were not going on vacation, I would probably have to vacate the house for a week.

Before and after pictures will be provided when the "after" stage has been reached.

BTW, once they finished today I immediately noticed one thing:my downstairs now has an enormous echo. If I drop a fork in the kitchen, the noise reverberates throughout the downstairs. That's going to take a little getting used to.