Slippin' & Slidin'

Our kitchen has hideous blonde-colored wood laminate flooring.  From day one, I never liked it nor understood why it was in the kitchen.  The rest of the house has the original oak floors...I figured there was probably carpet covering the living areas at one point and someone decided to install the laminate in the kitchen...then eventually took up the carpet--thus, the mismatched wood??? But we figured we would just live with it.

Around early December, the exisiting laminate floor starting slipping & sliding around and we would find large gaps between the boards.  Upon further review, we noticed there was no quarter-round installed by the baseboards and the cuts were terrible--this was an obvious DIY project gone bad.

We had a professional come by to look at our floor and estimate what it would cost to lay down new laminate that would match our original oak floors.  Turns out, there is original wood under the laminate.  We're doing everything we can do to preserve the dignity of our old home and this was exciting news!

Justin and I are not DIY'rs at all.  We had the contractor write up an estimate to see what it would cost for them to tear up the laminate and refinish the floor.  After the sticker shock of a $1300+ bid, we decided we could give it a shot ourselves!

I have to admit that doing it "ourselves" may really mean having Mom & Dad come down to help...especially since we had no idea what we could find once the laminate was removed!

I don't have any pictures, but unfortunately the wood floor is a soft wood--most likely, pine.  When we removed a few boards and the padding we immediately noticed the pieces of wood were wider than the oak everywhere else in the house--and it had also been painted at one point in time. The reason for the mismatched flooring was becoming a bit more obvious.

Now we're back to square one.  Do we find a laminate that is a close match to the original oak?  Do we spring for hardwood?  Or do we switch it up and consider laying a vinyl or stone floor?  In consideration of the living/dining areas' open layout and the straight visual line into the kitchen from the front door, I would like to keep the wood-look.  But does our wallet always match our "wants"???

I'm hoping we can price some options in the next few weeks.  I have to admit that I am disappointed in how the floors turned out but it's not the end of the world.  After all, we did just save ourselves some money by not letting the professionals tear into it for us!