Not now, dear, I have a headache.

I fully expected this project to be full of headaches, but I meant that figuratively, not literally. As it turns out, the floors are causing both. First I was elated to discover the original, same wood under tile. All it needed was a little TLC and it would be good as "new." I know now how ludicrous that sounds; I suppose I watched one too many HGTV shows to think it would be that easy. There goes yet another fantasy down the drain. But that wasn't even the worst of it. Because we removed some walls, there were also patches that had no flooring at all. I was assured - repeatedly - that it would be "no big deal" to patch these areas and match them perfectly to the existing flooring. Every time I questioned the reality of this, my contractor might as well have patted me on the head and told me not to worry my pretty little self about it, he'd take care of it.

So now it was time for the floor. And,a big cleaning because all the dust-producing work was done. I did a little jig! Since we had already sent our dog to the boarder, and because we were all so sick of the dust and the stain would stink to high heaven, we decided to use some of Matthew's 400,000 Marriott points and check ourselves into a hotel. We only needed two nights and we'd come home to a spiffy new kitchen floor and a nice clean house! Hurrah!

You know what's coming, right? Yup. The floor wasn't quite so easy to match - particularly when the workers bought PRE-FINISHED wood that they thought perfectly matched my 70-year-old red oak. Um, no. After they consented to replace the wood with appropriate flooring, my contractor discovered he couldn't actually match the stain. Nor had he been able to bring the covered up wood back to life. So two days wasted, tons of points gone, and yup, no floor. He called in a flooring company because they could do the job (which, BTW, is still a fairly small space) really well and really quickly. And, he promised, with no dust, since we just had a big cleaning. But by now I did not want to go back to the hotel, so we stayed through during the staining. The smell was unbearable, particularly since it was raining and we couldn't open the windows. And of course, the no-dust claim was a more vivid fantasy than even I could come up with. There was a fine coating of wood dust all over everything, including the furniture that we had carefully covered and the cleaning crew uncovered. And the piece de résistance: the cleaning crew unplugged our fridge, which of course was in the living room, and didn't plug it back in. Which we didn't discover for several days because we had been at the hotel and then were trapped out of the room during staining, so we lost just about everything in it.  Palm slap to forehead now.

And this is where the actual headache comes in. Two days of oil-based stain followed by sealant trapped in a closed up house is a great recipe for a blinding headache, in case you're ever in need of a manufactured one, if you get my drift. But hey, we have floors now: