Trees Beneath My Feet

Check out the floor in the kitchen. When we moved in, the kitchen was lined in a wood-look vinyl sheet. It lifts up when we vacuum it. The grossest part is that it has been laid right over the top of the filthy 1965 original kitchen floor. (Also vinyl, but a thick stuck down like a tile sort). You can see from the torn off bit, that Toto has chewed and eaten it (bad bunny). The existing carpet has been laid over the original underlay too, some sort of heshin sack type material that frays and flys through the air when touched. (Yuck). The carpet is Nylon. Brownish, beigy pink. Under all this is the concrete floor which by the sneak peek is quite significantly chipped and damaged so may need a bit of patching before we lay the new floor.









The new timber floor is currently stacked up behind the sofa. It's another one of those gigantic, space engulfing items we purchased when we first moved in. Knowing good and well we weren't going to need a new floor for months, I bought them anyway. The bargain was too good to pass up. $400 for just under 30sqm of real wood! They're the click together sort but with a bit of extra glue needed for support. On the packet it reads southern chestnut but based on what I've seen, this could be in disguise. The colour is quite brown, and this isn't a stupid thing to say, because when you see the HUGE variety of timber available, theres pinkish, yellowy, orange, grey, blue, greeny, and white-like woods. Dark, light, and grainy woods. Thin, wide and long bits of wood. Its actually very hard to find just brown. The unique thing about this timber, (besides it being brown) is the little flecks of black through it, which I LOVE. Check out one of the pictures, it looks like a little peeping black eye.





Still on the shopping list is some "Acoustic Minimising" underlay. This is a special sort that reduces the noise to the unit below. Its about 4-5 times the price but necessary when in an apartment block. Strata usually demand it. I've heard horror stories of people having to rip up new floors because of noise complaints and often strata can reject timber floors altogether. Luckily were in an older block and other units have already got timber floors down so we knew it was safe.

We were tossing up laminate for a while because they look very realistic these days, theyre hard wearing and they're cheap. But you know me, I cant help finding a bargain.