It's finally happening. . .

So I don't know if I've ever mentioned the saga that is my hatred for, and the slow destruction of, the hideous '80s decor in our townhouse.  To be clear, our house was built in the '80s, and so I can tolerate, and even like, some of its period architectural features.  But then there's this:

Do you know what that is?  That's 500+ square feet of teal carpet.  And bad teal carpet, at that.  It covers our entire living and dining room space.  It used to run all the way up to the second floor before we delighted in tearing it up and out (hence the neutral berber-style carpet you can see on the left-hand side of the shot covering the stairs).  I've wanted to tear it up since the moment we bought the house, but alas, replacing flooring is expensive.  Especially after you've re-done a bathroom (I should post about that!) and replaced a hot water heater and furnace, that decided to crap out at about the same time.  I know: Oy! 

But now, as major life changes are upon us (Read: a baby!  Coming in February!), I may have had a nesting-induced freak-out over the current state of things.  In my defense, this project was on the "to do" list for a while now.  It's urgency was moved up after my very sweet, but very messy nephew came to visit and was fed at our dining room table.  As anyone that has a one year-old will understand, more food wound up on the carpet than in his tummy.  Since baby food is much easier to clean off of wood than carpet, here we are. 

We spent the better part of a Sunday doing our due-diligence over where to get it.  We had decided on laminate wood in advance, and looked into the TV guys (Empire, National Floors Direct, Luna) before determining that was not the route we wanted to take.  Why not you ask?  Well, there are a lot (a really lot) of bad reviews for them online, and quite frankly, I didn't want to deal with the hassle.  So we took a look at the most easily available options, for us, anyway: Good 'ol Home Depot, Lowe's and Lumber Liquidators.  As you can imagine, they all had very similar products and very similar prices.  All 3 charge the same price for installation ($1.99/square foot) and each had a variety of different promotions relating to product price and financing.  We wound up selecting LL, for no other reason than that they had the most attractive financing offer (0% for 12 or 18 mos, depending on how much $$ you spend).  Done. 

They also had lots of pad options, which both HD and Lowe's didn't have.  Doesn't sound very interesting, but it allowed us to get a better pad than we would have otherwise gotten for less.  Our supply stockpile currently looks like this:

Those bad boys (I think they're actually Dream Home in "Plymouth Plank", in case you were wondering, while the pad is called the "Sound Absorber") have been given plenty of time to acclimate, so they'll be more than ready for installation next week.  We went with the thin ones, too (7mm) in part because we're kind of cheap, but in part because this isn't our forever house and we have a good subfloor.  Ok fine, and really because we're cheap.    

We did end up choosing to have the floors installed.  I know, I know.  Bunch of sissies we are.  However, in our defense, the room is shaped like a puzzle piece, and we've never done it (or anything like it) before.  See?

Actually, I should point out that in addition to a ridiculous room shape (requiring tons of cuts, to be made by a saw that we don't have), there is a column and a bunch of floor registers and outlets.  Basically, a nightmare.  Btw - Like my drafting skillz?  I know, you're impressed.

At any rate, we will be tearing up the carpet and painting ourselves, since we have both the know-how and materials to do that.  Our last carpet-tearing-up experience was quite positive, actually.  There's something really gross about living with someone else's (in this case, the prior owner's) carpet.  What we found under the carpet (stains, mold, grime) made us that much more happy and relieved that we were making the right decision.  Finally, we have 2 cats, and while they looooooove the carpet, they also ensure that it stays looking terrible most of the time by either scratching it or shedding on it.  You can see the little black "tufts of love" that are constantly adorning it in the picture above despite frequent vacuuming.  Gross. 

So there you have it.  I'll post some befores and afters some time next week if I can get my act together.  My parents are coming this weekend to help us paint.  Have you any experience with laminates or any other floor-laying adventures to share?  Are we huge losers for going the professional installation route?  Did you have a future-baby-induced home improvement freakout?  Tell me I'm not alone...