In the heat of the moment. . .

. . .we gutted our office.  In fact, the room was cleared and the carpet was half gone before my brain shouted. . .  "Before pictures!!"  I am sure I have a picture of my office somewhere, but I will have to hunt it down later for the final reveal.  So here is the first "during" picture:

And a few more of the office floor going in:

I decided to paint the room while it was empty.  The new color is called Whispering Wind.

Rather than tearing out the old wood on the threshold and weaving the new boards in we decided to put in threshold board and change directions.  I really like how it turned out.

We had hardwood in a large portion of the house but wanted to add it to the entire main floor.  It is 3/4" thick red oak.  We added more of the same with the idea of refinishing them in a really dark stain.

Midway we realized we bought more wood than the office needed so we tore out our family room carpet. (The idea was to do that floor--and the living room--when we re-do the kitchen in a couple months, but spontaneity's a good thing. . .right?)  Anyway, too late now.  

More pictures of the progress:

The living room will have to wait, however, because it currently looks like this:

We rented an orbital sander to remove the old finish and prepare the wood for stain.  

12 hours later we called it a day.

Here is a little of Rob's handy work. The marble on the fireplace surround was lower than the wood, so Rob made a frame with strips of oak and beveled the edge that butted up against the marble.  I love it.

We had a dark stain mixed up and tested it under our fridge.  First coat. . . too light.

Second coat. . . too heavy--and not drying well.

Panic sets in. . .phone calls are made.  Three wood finishers turn us down saying dark stains are too hard (what were we thinking?  Oh yeah, I think it was something like, "We can do anything!").  Moving on. . . breathing deeply. . . finding acceptance.  Better to have fabulous floors than not needing to say "I did it myself" due to the obviously unprofessional job.  Besides we did a lot ourselves.  

So reinforcements arrive tomorrow.  He is going to use Glitsa Stain in Sable with three layers of Swedish Finish.  Wish us luck!