Our Hole in the Floor

This is not going to be an exciting post, but it’s exciting to me.

So, I just posted about how we created a nice, larger opening in between our kitchen and living room. Unfortunately, a result of that was a cold air return stuck in the middle of our floor.

See that nice ol’ hole in the floor right in the walkway?

I tried a few different register covers on it, but all of them presented a tripping hazard in one way or another. They bent when you walked on them, or you stubbed your toe ‘cause they stood up too high.  I mean, it wasn’t surprising since most register covers are made to be out of the way, not right in the middle of where you walk.

Most of the time, Brian and I were completely fine walking around the hole, but the real problem came when we had family over or parties.  First of all, people don’t expect to find a hole in your floor,  and secondly, when there are a lot of people around, it’s just much harder to avoid said hole.

So after about 3 years, we finally fixed it.  We moved the cold air return to over by the bar (it took some time for Grandpa and me to figure out a convenient place to relocate it – but with lots of coffee and several trips to the basement, we worked it out) so that we were able to just cover up the hole with some leftover hardwood that I pre-finished with Waterlox to make our job easier.

No more hole!

Isn’t that the least exciting picture ever?  But I love to walk across it. For fun. Because I can.

Even though I prefinished the hardwood, there were some installation issues (that’s the nice way of putting it) resulting in the need to touch up the finish.  To keep the dogs and cat (and us) from walking over my wet finish, I created a little Stonehenge of paint cans to protect the area. We lived like this for days. It was silly.)

Have you done any little, boring projects lately that have made a big difference to you? Even if no one else notices, your heart still sings, right? :)