Amber Smith, January, Choose new flooring and have it installed by the time I host book club

Hello everyone!  My name is Amber Smith, and I met Nora by following her around West Jordan, Ut.  I moved into a house a year after she'd moved out of a house on the same street.  Luckily she still attended her old book club, and when I was invited to join we became friends!  Through book club I also met fellow Project Connectors Marisa Johnson, Robyn Noel and Dana Robb.  Nora and I also completed our first triathlon together, with Marisa Johnson.  And I know Donna Hawkins through numerous wonderful trips to "the cabin".

I'm blessed to have an amazing husband, Jake.  We've been married 10 years and 11 months.  We have three children, Dallin, who just turned 8 and was baptized last week, Abbie- 5, and Sadie- 2.  I love swimming, reading, running, snowboarding, waterskiing, being outdoors but not camping, traveling to new places, and laughing with my husband and kids.  I'm a stay-at-home mom, and also work about 7 hours a week as an advertising consultant for an online company.

As my overly long title states, my project for January was to choose new flooring.  For motivation, I gave myself the deadline of having it completed by the time I hosted book club, February 6th.  We moved to a new home in June 2013.  We loved the floor plan but wanted to make some decorating changes, especially to the carpet on the main level of the house.  It was cream, and matched the cream walls, cream tile, cream everything of the rest of the house.  By the time we'd lived here a few months, I hated the carpet!  It showed every footprint, every spill, including water or milk!  I've always loved the look of wood floors and decided that's what I wanted to put in my home.  Part of the plan (the most important part to me) was to pay for the floor without credit cards and without completely draining our savings account.  So we saved, spent less on Christmas, and hoped for a big work bonus for my husband.

To find wood flooring that we loved, my husband and I attended the home show.  That was a great idea!  We were able to talk to 6 or more companies, see the flooring displayed on a large scale, get pricing, and get educated on the pro's and con's of different woods.  We found a wood and a manufacturer we loved at the show!  The wood we chose is hand-scraped Acacia, or Malaysian Walnut.  It's a beautiful wood with lots of color variation and "character"- visible knots and patterns in the wood.  It was perfect to add some character to our home.  Choosing the floor was easier than I thought it would be.

Since we already knew the manufacturer, stain and style we wanted, I called some distributors from the manufacturer's website to get quotes.  I called a distributor in West Jordan just because they were close to my house, and it turned out they had the exact flooring I wanted on sale! (Fortune?  Inspiration?)

To save money and stay in budget, we chose to do the demolition of the old floor ourselves and have a professional install it. The demolition included removing the carpet, pad and tack strips, baseboards, and tile from the entry way and fireplace.  Not only did my husband spend his bonus on the new floor, he also did the bulk of the demolition!  He also replaced the baseboards himself.  I told him we can spend the money his labor saved us on a big fluffy rug for the family room!

The only downside of the whole process was that everything with the installation took longer than the flooring company estimated.  From delays in the delivery of the wood, snowy weather that delayed the wood acclimating in my house, to waiting for the installers to show up.  The floor installation was supposed to be completed in one day, Monday.  To make a long story short, the floor was completed at 5 pm Thursday, the night I was hosting book club!  Living in a construction zone with my house torn apart, filled with dust and overrun by workers was the worst part of this project.  But, it was completed by my deadline and has all the professional finishing touches (like butting right up to the tile without a transition, and the "picture-framing" around the tile).  And I'm absolutely in love with my new floors!