A Floor and a Fire

Wow, it has been a long time since I've posted. I've been neglecting my blog and I've been neglecting visiting YOU and I apologize. It's been a crazy few weeks here with working on the kitchen. It turned out to be a much bigger project than we had anticipated! The floor is done and the room is almost put back together. I want to put some finishing touches on it and then I'll show you the whole thing. There is a sneak peek at the bottom of this post along with a story about it. Wait, wait! Don't go to the bottom yet....I want to show you our bedroom trees first!!

This is the only Christmas decorating I have been able to do so far......

Hailey's tree, pink and sweet.....

Ella wanted a purple tree to go with her room. She has a very small space so we chose a mini tree for in here to go on her dresser...

Her room is on the list for some attention this coming year. Her mouldings will be painted, the carpet replaced....well, I'll save that for another time. Here's a close up of her tree with its crazy colors. She loves it!

And Emidio's green tree. Green is his favorite color ever. Everything is green recently. Too bad I can't get him to eat any green vegetables. The green obsession ends there.....

His tree is filled with puzzle ornaments. Very easy to do. I just used a needle to make a hole and put them on ornament hooks....

And last but not least, our gold and silver tree......

The tree "skirt" is brown toile fabric that I folded under and wrapped around the tree. No sewing, no fuss. And now if I want to use the fabric for something else in the future, I can.

Now onto the floor. The adhesive that was on the floor was so thick and stubborn it took 5 days of sanding to get it off. Then there was the green paint around the edges, most likely oil based, that was also extremely stubborn. Once all the sanding was completed, we were so excited to be able to put some stain on there.

My husband was almost done with the stain last Friday night when he realized there were some spots on the floor. Upon closer inspection we realized they were......paw prints! The dogs must have run through the kitchen with damp paws while it was bare wood. These stains were showing right through the stain. We were so upset. No....make that extremely upset. We realized the only way to get these marks out would be to re-sand the entire floor. If we sanded just the marks, the stain would then be uneven.

We went to bed that night feeling completely defeated. It had been two weeks without a stove, the house a complete disaster, no holiday fun going on.....

We swore there would never be a project done right before Christmas again....never again.

The next morning we got up and dressed right away to head out to Lowes for more sandpaper and more stain. As we drove away from our house, my husband whipped the car around and said, "Oh my God, the house is on fire." I thought I heard him wrong. A fire, what? Sure enough, a few homes down from us, smoke was pouring from the roof of a twin home. He pulled over, and ran to the side of the twin that wasn't on fire to tell the couple living there to get out. They had smelled the smoke but at that point had no idea it was coming from the home attached to them. I called 911 with a shaking voice and we heard the sirens in town right away. At this point my husband went to the side that was on fire and kicked the door open to yell inside. No one was home. Windows started to break near the fire....it was a devastating sight.

We watched in horror as neighbors lost their home and a crowd gathered to see the firefighters work.

The day was heavy on our hearts.....



We couldn't imagine losing our home, the precious things we hold dear....our photos, special items passed down from family. All the things that can't be replaced.

What if this had been our home?

(Photo Credit: Here )

After this experience we realized our problems were small. A few paw prints, oh well. We left them alone. We sealed right over them. A reminder of a day we won't forget, a reminder of how lucky we are to have our home and our family.

I think the floor is beautiful and I can't wait to show you the rest of it!

Have a safe and happy Sunday!