It's been too long...!

Eek! Where did the last two-ish months go?! After my last post in July, I left for Alabama for a "business" trip, came home for a bit, headed to Maine for vacation, then a quick trip to the Adirondacks...and I have no idea where September went. I promise to do better. I hope :)

Now for updates!!

Two of the three bedrooms are 98% complete. My dad and step-mother flew up for a visit last month (that was my September excuse!) so we completely finished the guest room sans crown molding. I also have a really neat idea for a headboard that I hope to tackle soon. The office/third bedroom is done minus the crown molding and a tiny bit of electrical. I'll post pics of that soon...when I can get back there. More on that soon.

We started on the master bedroom floors about a week and a half out from the parental visit. We used a much thicker brush for the stain thinking we would need fewer coats in the end. Bad idea. The first coat wasn't dry by the end of the week, nor by the time our visitors arrived, nor by the time they left! Rather than looking like the other rooms where the wood grain shined through, this looked like we had painted our floors. So we started sanding it back up to start over.

In the middle of the bedroom fiasco, we got the opportunity to move out for a week to work on the living room and hallway floors. Here's a before pic:

I had to take this with my phone so it's a bit dark. This room had the best floors by far out of the entire house. (Well...except the whole "carpet in the kitchen" thing.) No deep stains, and Andrew sanded them really well. We moved out on a Sunday, I stained the hallway on Monday and the living room on Tuesday. In the picture you can see where I stained the perimeter with a brush. We used a mop to do the rest of the room. I highly recommend getting the brush/mop apparatus! It made staining so much easier.

You can get lamb's wool pads for these, but the guy at Lowe's told us the cheaper version would do just as well. You just need to be careful to smooth out where you start and stop with the mop--it can leave a mark or small bubbles. Overall though, it was a fabulous purchase. Below is a pic of the first coat:

We left that island area because we need to sand the closet area a little more. Once we poly the rest of the floor we'll go back to that area and blend it with the rest. 

All of those pictures were from last week, so we're now on week two of being out of the house. Last Sunday we touched up the entire area and are now waiting for it to dry before doing the poly. More pics of work to come soon, plus a new feature for the deck!