When Will and I were house hunting, we first stepped into our house and we both just cracked up. The entire house had a black marble floor. Living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom, hallway...and we just thought it was funny looking. We also saw another couple that looked at the house and they laughed at it as well. We decided we could look past the ridiculous marble for the time being and we bought the house.
Now, we have actually received a lot of compliments on the marble. People come into the house and the first thing they say is "Wow! What a beautiful floor!" or something along those lines. A lot of people asked if we put it in. I kind of find that a bit offensive. Not only is it hideous, but it's put in horribly, not to mention stained and just gross looking. I mean, really, don't people think we could do better than that? Okay, I'm not *really* offended, but...seriously.
I have a hard time comprehending that people like it, but here are a few of my speculations on it:
1. It's so eye catching - I mean, you REALLY can't miss it - that people's first reaction is surprise. So they must comment. And then, since they commented, they compliment it to be kind. "Oh, is this real marble? It's very nice!" Basically, they compliment it because it's different, not because it's actually nice looking.
2. People that come to visit us simply have bad taste in flooring.
3. We simply have bad taste in flooring.
Those are the only things I can think of.
We bought the laminate sometime in January, but we waited a while to install it because we had to tear out all the marble, plus a thick underlayment, and the original wood floor, and we knew it was going to take a while. You might ask why we tore out the wood floor too - it was
so nasty. Urine stains, bad patch work, stinky, just altogether gross. Thank goodness the subfloor was still in pretty good shape! Will had a 4-day weekend, so we started on Friday. I thought for sure it would take at least a couple of weekends to finish, even with the long one. However...Friday we got all the marble out and started on the underlayment and hardwood. Andy and Steph came over to help for a couple of hours on Saturday, and we got the rest of it out. Their couple of hours was SO helpful!! I couldn't believe how quickly it came out. Then we got all the nails out and cleaned the subfloor. On Sunday we vacuumed it and got it ready to put the laminate on top. We also fixed a few pieces in the hallway where we did our "practice" installation to test it out. On Monday, we REALLY got started on putting it in. It went fairly quickly, and we got it all done probably around 3ish.
We were (and still are!) so tired and sore from those four days, but it is SO worth it! Last night Will and I kept randomly wandering into the living room just to see it again. We both love it so much.
Doesn't it look so much more home-y and inviting? Black, cold marble doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy on the inside, but I think this does!! Now I just have to wait another long time till we can buy new furniture and I'll have the living room I truly want. But this is such a huge step and I am thrilled with it!
Here are some more pictures if you want to see.
Recently, I decided that it would be a lot of fun to build a few things with wood. With my creativity and my husband's mad skills, I thought we would be able to make some things without too much trouble. Our first project (okay, it's a very silly first project...) was an entry table. Complete with tapered legs, drawers, and edges routed out for a nice touch. Ridiculous, really. I wanted to start with a basic coffee table, but since we got one with our couch set...well, we didn't need one anymore! And I've been wanting an entry table since we moved in, but I'm not about to drop $200 on one, which is how much all the ones I liked were. So I told Will what I wanted, he drew it up and figured out all the measurements, and we built it together and I stained it. 
