One less headache...the hardwood is laid

Just a quick update - this weekend Jason and I managed to get the hardwood floors laid in the bedroom that we hope to soon take residence. The walls are in desparate need of painting and we will still need to lay down the baseboards...but all of these are (hopefully) easier steps than leveling the sub-floor and laying the actual hardwood. Unfortunately, I had the digital camera at work, and so we weren't able to take a picture of Jason's wonderful job on the sub-floor before it became transformed. Pics of the hardwood soon to follow.

I'm sure that Jason will have some stories to share...but here is my take of the experience:

1) Doing renovations with a spouse is a trying experience for both parties - as any couple will attest.

2) While doing renovations, spouses are nicer to each other when a third-party is present. For several hours on day 2 - my brother Paul was there to help. With the three of us working, we managed to get much farther along than Jason and I alone could have hoped. We each had our task - mine, to set up the next few courses of wood; Jason to tamp each piece into place; Paul - to use the power nailer to get everything that Jason couldn't tamp into place to fit as snuggly as possible to the other boards as well as to identify when some of the boards needed to be placed just a bit differently so that later on we would be much happier with the job.

3) Each spouse has his/her own particular expertise that they bring to the event. In our case - my ability to eye-ball relative "straightness" of lines, laying out wood so that it looks pretty, being able to identify that 'this will drive me crazy (and hence you crazy) in the future if we don't fix this little problem now', and (most-importantly) being able to recognize Jason's skills and therefore be content with being a go-to-gal (i.e. getting what is missing in the room); Jason's ability to accurately measure, engineer creative solutions to difficult areas, natural propensity to research things in advance both to be informed as well as able to implement useful hints, and pure endurance to spend that much time on his knees and crawling around on the ground to get everything in place (particularly since my knees just can't do that concentrated effort). All expertise is valid.

4) The parable - give someone a fish and their hunger will be sated temporarily; teach someone to fish and they will never go hungry again...plays out in the carpentry world. While I may have initially owned more power tools than Jason, he had the knowledge, experience and practice with them. When Jason patiently showed me how to do something (albeit the 'patience' occasionally seemed more like frustration - refer to point #1), he found that the time spent was much more fruitful later on in the job because he could just say "we need the wedge here" and I knew exactly what to do. (NOTE: the 'wedge' was a really creative solution that Jason read in one of his books that shows you how to get one piece of board to fit more snuggly against another piece of board - particularly when one of the boards is slightly warped.)

5) It's a great source of pride in doing the job ourselves (mistakes, problems and everything) but next time...hire it out.

On this job, I became much more proficient at using the drill, the table saw, the brad nailer, the power nailer and the air compressor. Most importantly from this job, Jason and I are still friend.

I'm sure there is more to write, but that's it for now.