Kryptonic Floor

So I've realized two things in the last few days:
1. This blog is slowly morphing from a blog about being a new wife to a blog about remodeling a house.  I'm hoping that in two weeks that changes dramatically.  I'm not exactly a "This Old House" kinda gal!
2. I kinda stink at posting on a regular basis.  Also something I hope changes in the next few weeks.

Now on the floors.  For those of you who don't know, the kitchen floor has been the thorn in my side throughout this entire home remodel.  We got no glue vinyl flooring over Memorial Day weekend when my wonderful family was down helping us work on the house.

My wonderful uncle and grandparents!

Now none of us had ever laid this type of flooring but we were up for the adventure.  We removed all of the appliances and the quarter round from the walls (which was actually kind of fun).

The old floor

 Rolling out the floor was pretty easy and even cutting it to size was okay.  We made a few minor errors, but nothing that couldn't be fixed.  We nailed the quarter round back in and installed the two new pantry-sized cabinets - everything was smooth sailing up to this point.

The new floor

Then disaster struck!  

While putting the range back into place a VERY large tear was put into my brand new floor.  Now let me tell you, I did not handle it very well.  I even ran out of the house and up the street at one point.  After I calmed down - and apologized to my family for acting like I was 12 - I spent an hour laying on the floor trying to cut out the perfect patch.  I got very, VERY familiar with a utility knife.  The patch looked - okay?  But thankfully it was in an area that could be covered with a throw rug!

Flash forward about two weeks.  We needed to move a shelf in our new refrigerator.  I was so scared about moving it out because of the floor.  Darrin said it would be fine and did it one Tuesday while I was at Small Group.  He said everything was fine...but I came to find out that wasn't the case that FRIDAY when he finally told me the floor had pulled up and bubbled.  According to Darrin my reaction was much better then he expected (could have had something to do with the fact that we were out to dinner and I was on my second glass of wine and knew something chocolate was in my future?).  He had a friend fix it that weekend and our wonderful flooring guy said he'd work on it when he installed our carpet.  

Now by this point I'm afraid to even walk on this floor.  Which isn't good because the kitchen is a pretty important room in the house - I mean, we have to eat, right?  Honestly, I'm pretty sure everyone who's had a 2 minute conversation with me knows about this floor.  I figured that it was okay though and it would last us a year or so.  

Well this past Friday Darrin was out with a friend and went over to the house to build our drawers that match our (new) desk!  I took a quick peak in the kitchen to see if I needed to do some cleaning, and that's when I saw it...it was huge, and right there in my new floor.  ANOTHER TEAR!  Now I'm not even sure HOW this happened.  It was right under the freezer  - but there it was, starring me in the face, mocking me for my new-found serenity over this floor.  This time, I kind of lost it.  This floor (which is less than SIX WEEKS OLD) is advertised as being No-Tear.  The first tear I could get over, the stove was big and not exactly normal wear-and-tear, but this second tear?  No clue how it happened.  Nothing was dropped or moved or anything. All I could think was, "God, I know there is a reason this $150 floor is giving me this much aggravation, PLEASE let me learn it before I lose my mind."  

I was able to call Home Depot that night and explain the situation.  The manager was very nice and told me to come in the next day.  I went and saw him and am hoping that we can get a new floor for no cost.  I also called our flooring guy and he's going to install a new (hopefully better) floor for us next weekend when we're in Charlotte (he's also charging us about 40% less then normal since we've been using him a lot - there really is something to be said about forming relationships with people).  

So after about six weeks of stress and borderline total obsession I'm finally getting a new, NEW floor in my kitchen.  

I'm still not sure what lesson I should be learning from this?  To let the professionals do it?  That there is still good in people (mainly the nice guy at Home Depot who is working to get this fixed for me)?  That it's just a floor and I'm lucky I have one to stress out about? Or maybe that everything will work out in the end.

Well, now I'm off to work on the dining room floor - don't worry, it's real hardwood so I'm just going to polish it and lay an amazing area rug down!

Just curious - have any of you ever remodeled your house?  Did you have any hiccups like this?  Leave a comment below!