backyards and hardwood floors....

Well, hello spring. It is nice for you to finally join us here in the mountains. 

Our backyard is an azalea oasis. Really. Right now most are overgrown and have so many vies and things growing all in them, but they are still blooming in full glory and beautiful. I can't wait to clean them up over the years and make them even more glorious. All of the colors are spectacular. And really, we have may 16-20 of them all over our property. I walked up the other day and though, who needs Callaway Gardens, when I have this! 

While on the 'yard' kick--- thanks for the comments about the plants being Hostas. Greatly appreciated. 

So this is just the first part of my "back yard" section of this blog post. Ryan went over the house yesterday and spent HOURS cleaning out our "back back yard". Our fenced in lot has a middle fence (that we plan on taking down) to make the yard feel even bigger. ((and to make some $$ on craigslist)) The back yard is great. Grass. raised beds. really cute. The Back-Back yard is a HOT mess. Two LARGE (15x25) "beds" that have been completely overgrown by weeds and ivy and tiny trees and who knows what else... 

yeah. basically you can't tell that its anything.... until. after a few hours of very hard work from my amazing awesome husband....

we have a blank canvas folks. 

seriously. AMAZING. 

....now to do the other side. 

we are researching sod that grows under intense shade for this area. It would add such great value and make the yard so much bigger. I would love like a small brick floor patio back here--- but its not level. at all. so would be a lot of work and lots of money. Anyway--- so so so very excited to have cleared out half the jungle. Only have this same size bed to do on the other side of the 'back back yard'. 

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Now to switch gears... 

You may read the following paragraph and think we are crazy. And well, maybe we are. But we are excited about our crazy adventure today and the awesomeness that is about to come. 

Let's start with a pretty picture... 

Today, we drove over to Murphy, NC. Amazing drive up the Nantahala River. And the weather was perfect. Bright blue sky. Cool mountain air. It was perfect! Oh, but why did we go to Murphy, NC you ask?!? Well to the reallycheapfloors.com warehouse of course! 

Yes. Yes. I know. This is the part you think we are crazy... 

but after reading a million reviews and having a trustworthy coworker tell me all about her great experience there, we had to go see about it. 

Their website says its all- really cheap floors. We are talking buck-fifty/square foot for solid hardwoods. 

Yes. Solid. They have the Engineered kind too for less. 

It is a Shaw Flooring warehouse and there are a couple all over the country. You can order the highest best most perfect quality, or you can buy the warehouse boxes. So you get a lower grade. Meaning: imperfections in the wood, all different sized boards, larger knots in the wood, some markings etc. You also add a little more than you need planning for waste so you can end up with some great results. My coworker was amazed and how good it all was... she said they had very minimal waste. You can see this as crappy, or like us, see this as character and recycling! Whats not good enough for someone else, is perfect for us! You can see on the display boards above what a sample out of the box looks like. They also open boxes and let you see the wood inside.

So, to start. We originally liked this Red Oak because it blended well with the floors already in the house...

((oh did I mention... American made!?))

but then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw this beautiful 'natural hickory' and LOVED it. Of course we asked and they said it was more expensive because Hickory is the best hardwood in the country. Ryan pushed me to find out the price... no harm in asking right?!... and amazingly it was ONLY 10cents more a square foot!
SOLD!

To us the imperfections in this wood looks more natural than the Red Oak imperfections did.
We love all the wood grains and variations in color, and they all blend so well together.

So after a HUGE thanks to my wonderful parents, these beautiful hardwood came home with us!! 

(well most. half went back to the parentals because they didn't fit in our car) 

Our hope is to put it down next weekend with my dad's help before I jet off to Haiti for a week!

It's just going in our kitchen and 'mudroom' so about 200 sq ft of space.

Hopefully next weekend our kitchen will look something like this....

Yippppeeee!!! 

And after pricing the exact same flooring (highest quality/grade of course) on the Shaw website we paid 9times LESS. yes... That's crazy. So as you can see in the picture the "best/highest quality" is varied and funky... which is why its going to look awesome. 

and... best part is... its called "Lucky Day". I think thats perfect because it was our lucky day! 

Let's see what I think about these floors in a week--- when we start opening boxes and laying it down.

So.... then we drove home. On this glorious road. Enjoyed the sunshine and the sky. 

And I am itching to unpack the boxes and lay out the floor! 

I suppose we need to move the appliances, and pull up the quarter round and other stuff first though. So SO SOOOOO exciting!! Our first home is coming along so nicely! I can't wait to move in officially!