In other news

We have received some of the last building materials we will need for some time. I went and ordered the last (hopefully) of the hardwood flooring for upstairs. As it turned out we were very unimpressed with the stuff we had gotten. Don't get me wrong it looks nice now that it is down but....It was laced with open face knots through out. The sample at the store had 2 little (maybe the size of a dime) knots in it. Well the stuff we got had tonnes of knots. Big small broken open faced. You name it. Faced with the need to get the floor down I sucked it up and installed it as it was. Kept telling myself it is an old home this is well suited to it. When down it looked pretty nice overall. Just hard on the bare feet if you were to catch it the wrong way. I still plan to fill the holes with a syringe of verathane when the warmer weather comes so that it will cure faster and better. Now I ordered less floor then needed on purpose because the last thing we wanted was to be stuck with extra that we couldn't return due to it being a custom order. So I needed another 80 sq feet. Fast forward to last weekend. I go and pick it up as it has come in. We get it home and open a box. There is not a knot to be found. The boards look like the ones on our main floor very much like the sample. We still have 2 boxes of the old stuff which is a good thing for 2 reasons. I now have proof of what we received aside from the flooring that is already laid. As well I'm going to need to mix the old with the new to get a more rustic look to finish the upstairs. Now in all of this I have made a few calls to the building center we bought the flooring from to complain. On 2 occasions I was told a date that I would be hearing back from someone. Both times nothing. Well finally after my third try now having the new flooring in hand to prove that the first round was the pits we got a call. I talked to the guy whom was very pleased at our patience and willingness to work with the stock. He told me he would call us back by the end of the day to give us some sort of compensation for our troubles. That was almost a week ago now. I called and left a message for him on Friday and still no word. I know anything could have happened like say a death in the family or something so we are trying to keep our cool. Will post more on this when I know more. The one advantage to all this though is the wood in the original batch had plenty of mixed species of maple including lots of birdseye pieces. We have many curly maple pieces on the main floor but few with birdseye.

In other wood news. We have gotten about 100 linear feet of the baseboard topper seen in the previous posts picture custom made. A guy at the local lumber yard made it for us at a reasonable rate. Took a little while as I gave it to him before Christmas. I must say it is very nice looking stock. We only need some 30 or so feet. I figured in case we need to repair or replace something in the future or choose to build off the back of the house that it would be good to have the extra stock. That way any other work will flow better with the house. I can't wait to install this stuff. My only problem is the old stuff takes on a nice honey hue when verathane is applied where the new is more blond in appearance. Hopefully it will darken up with time. It is in behind the couch in the picture below as well as the 4 boxes of flooring above it. I know the stairs look a little funny but we have cork under the treads to cut down on the noise for the time being as the treads are still not secured down yet.