Befloor and After

I can't believe I didn't post a picture of the finished floor product. Chalk it up to setting automatic posting (if I don't do that I will tweek posts endlessly) and not being able to find the cable to connect the good camera to the computer. I took some pictures in the daylight with the iThing, so you can really see the difference.

You remember this disaster, right?

This is what I came home to after our yoga workshop weekend. I was a little bit like, whoa, three days and they've only gotten this far on the stairs. The rest of the floors were done. The stairs still had a long way to go. You can see that the risers are exposed but the treads still need work. The risers don't even look that great here; there were lots of dings.

The next day, the stairs were pristine. They still had to fill in a lot of the gaps with wood filler, but their piney beauty was now apparent.

And here they are, finished and gorgeous.

Dear readers, here are some things to know:

Sometimes, you really should not D it your Y. I am a huge DIY girl, to the point of stupidity sometimes. Like right now I should be coordinating some people to help me unpack and move furniture (really, we could have a big ol house-based dance and then people could move stuff up and it would be done), but I know I won't. Partly because it's asking people for help and partly because I want to Stain All The Things before I move them back in. But floors as damaged as these were? Totally need the professionals.

The other thing is a little more esoteric: People come into your life for odd reasons, and they are never the reason you think. Recall that I found my realtor through a broken boy who broke my heart. I found West Coast Swing -- and my floor guys, and community, and a new guy-possibility -- through someone who turned out not to be the right guy for me at all. Letting people be who they are and play the roles they end up playing, rather than the roles I want them to play, is a continuous challenge.

But it brings good things, if I let it.