Nesting – it’s a real thing. Birds do it. And apparently so do pregnant women. I’m just thankful I have a husband who is patient and willing to nest right along with me. The process of getting Rory’s room ready has been going on for several months now. We found out we were pregnant before we moved into the new house, so I’ve always had visions of what his room could/should/would be like. And of course I can’t forget to mention Pinterest (aka every nesters dream). My Nursery Inspiration board kept growing, along with my desire to get right down to work and make things happen. Which brings us to Phase 1: Painting. This room had a hideously dark before picture with maroon walls and navy blue carpet (as you can see in this post). After we got some fresh paint on the walls, we realized how disgusting the blue carpet looked. However, because of our tight budget and the long list of other things we wanted to do around the house, we decided to let it go. Then my parents came along and offered to fund the project and in a moment of heroic pride, we decided to save them some money and do it ourselves!! Which clearly brings us to Phase 2: Flooring. We knew this would be a process, so we gave ourselves some time to figure out exactly how we wanted to tackle it. For those of you who are considering tearing up carpet and restoring hardwood floors, here’s some advice from one amateur to another:

1. Do your research. We spent weeks on this step – I’m talking google, YouTube videos, about.com, wikiHow, blogs like Young House Love, family, friends, strangers, random people at Lowe’s. The best videos to watch are the ones where people screw things up. That way you know what not to do. After gathering all the information we possibly could, we got down to work. We didn’t know what we would find when we ripped up all the carpet, but honestly it was the best case scenario. Here’s what we found:

And then some problem areas like these:

But overall, we were pleased with how they looked. We spent lots of time on our hands and knees tearing out staples so we were glad when that was finally done! The next part of our research phase was deciding what to do next. We relied heavily on a friend of ours who works in construction. He recommended a product called Rubio Monocoat – a unique hard-wax oil that protects and colors the wood in a single coat. It is also no VOC, which was another huge selling point for this pregnant DIY-er!! You can read more about it on their website http://www.rubiomonocoatusa.com. And be sure to watch the videos…research, research, research!! So after much debate on which color to choose, we placed our order and waited for it to arrive.

2. Prepare yourself. Set aside time the day/night before you plan to start your big project and get prepared. Obviously I mean do the necessary prep-work tasks, but start mentally preparing yourself as well. Pep talks, positive self-talk, meditation – whatever it takes to get you in the zone! But also be prepared to fail a few times before you get it right. As far as actually preparing for the project, here’s how our Friday night went:
– Go to Lowe’s to pick up items you will need
– Cover the walls in plastic
– Seal off the doorways (but make sure you have an exit strategy!)
– Gather all the tools you will need for the project
– Get a good night’s sleep

3. Get down to it. Saturday morning started off with a trip to the machine rental place. We loaded our old-school orbital sander into the car and headed back to Lowe’s for more supplies that we forgot in our previous trip. After some sort of miracle, Brad and my pregnant self hauled this beast of equipment up the stairs (it is much heavier than it looks).Clearly we are ready to get the job done.

There was a bit of a learning curve as far as our work flow went, but once we got the hang of things it was smooth sailing. Brad would sand and I would come along behind with the shop vac and sweep up his mess. After four hours and several bathroom breaks, we had the room looking like this:

We decided to stop there and leave the rest of the work for Sunday. We ended up spending our evening with friends and food and it was a much needed break from

4. Don’t lose momentum! After a day and a half of working in extremely close quarters, even the best of friends can start to wear on each other. It was at some point on this day that we stopped talking but kept working. Our tasks for the day included: sweeping the entire room with the shop vac, taking the plastic off the walls, shop vacing everything again, wiping the floor with denatured alcohol, mixing the Rubio Monocoat, and applying it. Check it out!That melted chocolate-looking substance is what we put on the floor, and in no time it was looking like this:

So here it is, the final product, before and after.  Not too bad for a couple of amateurs if I do say so myself 🙂 Clearly, we still have some work to do in there – avert your eyes from the unsightly trim and baseboards! But I am feeling pretty invincible, like we can tackle any DIY project we set our minds to.

Thanks for reading! Now leave us some love 🙂