How 'bout dem apples?

Yesterday, I received a call from Luna (the carpet people) that the installer would be arriving sometime between 9am and 2pm. After a few WTFs, I asked for something a wee more precise, if it wasn't too much bother. She said it would be closer to 2pm, and I would get a call 30 minutes before they arrived to let me know.

So this morning, I head out to run errands. I stopped at a few garage sales (yes, even in rain, people still wanna peddle their shit). I forgot to take my phone to one of them, and sure enough I returned to 2 missed calls and one message, stating the installers were waiting outside my front door. I guess the 30 minutes was forgotten about. It's almost 1pm at this point.

I rushed home (as fast as one can with 2 tickets on her record) and found 2 guys sitting outside. I tried asking about my 30 minute warning, but no one spoke enough English to know what I was saying. What. Ever.

They start moving furniture, then ripping up old carpet. I ran downstairs with the dog to catch up on my soaps. A little while later, I turned around to glance at the now-naked stairs heading up to the front door, and low and behold....

Them thar stairs had some dang pretty hardwood on them.

Going back a bit, we originally had a quote done on putting wood/laminate on the stairs and landing. After being quoted $2300 for the stairs alone, we nixxed that idea and decided to take the cheap route and have them carpeted.

After flipping out, I ran to find a phone to call Paul to tell him the news. Now, the stairs previously had carpet that, for some unknown reason, had been stapled to the stairs probably 50-80 times on each step, so they were looking a little ragged, but they were nonetheless hardwood. NICE hardwood. PRETTY hardwood.

The wood is only on the stairs and the trim around the stairs. It's not on either of the landings (by the front door, or below by the garage door), so we'll still have to go with our plan to tile those. But I now have a weekend project: making the pretty nice hardwood even prettier and nicer. I can do that. I have skills.

So that was the excitement for the day. Pictures will follow, I'm sure. I'm still working on putting the house site together again, since we made so many drastic changes. The inside is almost finished, but the outside hasn't been started yet (hopefully, next week!). The carpet looks so good, though it's a wee lighter than we were anticipating. That's the problem with seeing a 2" by 2" square--you never really get a good picture of it in your 200 square foot area. We're hoping to not have the same problem with the siding on the front. That swatch was only 1"x2" and had to be matched with existing siding. If we did the same quality picking on that as we did the carpet...well, there could be trouble in paradise.

More after the stairs are done....