4300 Pounds

On Monday, 4300 pounds of Tobacco Road Acacia flooring in 51 boxes arrived after a slight delay (it was supposed to be here on Friday, but since the radiant heat wasn't up and running until noon-ish Monday, it didn't matter much). Bob unloaded all of it by himself. That wasn't in the job description of the truck driver. :) We opened it up and began spreading it all over the floor for drying. According to the moisture meter, it was in the mid teens and must be below 10 in order to begin flooring. Our goal is Saturday, starting in the corner by the woodstove. Once we reach the doorway, we will come out into the dining/kitchen area which must be done by Monday or Tuesday so our cabinets can installed.


I really love this wood, but it was not my first choice. I really wanted a very similar wood called Tobacco Road Teak that was handscraped. That simply means that it was wavy and felt anything but smooth when you walked on it. However, it was almost $2000 more dollars than this one. In an effort to stay within our self imposed budget, we opted for the second choice. I still am excited about it and can't wait to start installing it. I think it will be more challenging than the bamboo because of the variation in both color and size. We checked the moisture meter quite frequently and it has decreased significantly, but needs to continue to get within range. It feels so nice to walk into the house and not be cold. It is a very cozy 65 degrees and very easy to work up a sweat when emptying boxes of wood!
In the meantime, Bob has been working on the 1/2 bath as well as the girls' bath upstairs to prepare it for tiling. We are having electrical radiant heat in each of the bathrooms. It has been a multi stepped process beginning with painting on this waterproof plastic stuff, then laying the underlayment (that's the soft gray stuff), and THEN laying out the mats. The wavy dark lines are actually the wires. Bob was very careful not to cut them as he re-arranged the ones you see on the right side. Next step is the actual tiling. The tile is all ready bought and awaiting his careful ministrations. You can kind of see it in the box to the left. The same tile is being used for the girls as well as possibly the mudroom.
Upstairs the girls' vanity lights are installed as well and their electrical radiant heat is at the same step (the picture was just kind of boring). Lest you think I am confused about the lights, we are trying to decide to hang them up or down. The down position gives better light on the face when the mirrors are up. What do you think? I am putting the same light downstairs in the above bathroom but it will have three lights instead of just the two.

Pray for drying of the wood so we can begin flooring this weekend please. We are hoping to make much progress in many areas, but namely flooring, amidst all of us being sick with severe colds etc. We are all in varying degrees of recovery or worsening. Just something that has been going around.......
Good night and God bless, Ellie~