Before & After: Hallway

Before

With two cats in the house, Laura and I are always trying to make things easier to clean and maintain.  We decided it was time we did something about the carpet in the main hallway and we ultimately decided to extend the parquet flooring from the hallway down the hall. 

I special ordered the parquet tiles about a month ago and successfully kept them out of Laura's sight, thus out of her mind until just recently.

Last weekend we ripped up the carpet, padding, and tack strips.  Not a big deal really, but the staples left over from the padding were not fun to remove.  We made a trip to the hardware store and bought some floor padding under-layment.  Laura gently pried the baseboards from the walls and we decided to put the rest off until this weekend.

During

Laura had Friday off and she did a considerable amount of parquet tile laying.  I joined in on the fun Saturday and we finished the detailed work around the doorways and in the closet.  We had more than enough entry ways to consider down the 80+ square foot hallway: three bedrooms, one bath, one coat closet, one large laundry closet, and a doorway to the basement. 

We were running out of tile to finish the interior of the coat closet and Laura somehow managed to puzzle piece the remaining scraps together.  Persistence and patience at its finest.  It was cool to watch her progression.

Today we touched up the wall paint, lowered the baseboards to the height of the new parquet flooring, and touched up the paint on the baseboards as well. 

Major shout out to my dad for loaning us his air compressor, staple gun, and brad nailer.  They proved to be very helpful!

The project lasted about a week, but only about two dozen total man hours in all.  We're both pretty happy with the result.  Next up: a runner of flor carpet tiles to dress up the hallway and add some much needed traction.