Being a homeowner is so much fun! Who knew going to Home Depot could be so exciting?

We have wanted to do laminate flooring in the living room and dining room ever since we moved in. Of course, when we moved in, this wasn't our house. We always thought though that it would be really nice. When we bought it we said "let's do it". We assumed that laminate wood flooring would be an economical way to get a wood look without doing hardwood floors. Plus, it's more durable, more kid and pet friendly. We have friends who did hardword flooring and although beautiful, it seems like a pain. For one, they can't have a dog, and people who have dogs can't bring them over. I guess I won't really be visiting with them in December. The dogs nails can scratch their floors, the kids have to be careful with their toys, and well it just doesn't make for a very fun house. (Not that it was very fun before then either, but I digress)

We priced flooring and to our shock, it was going to cost us almost a 1,000 dollars! We were amazed. We were thinking literally, half that. We just had more floor to cover than we realized. Even the Home Depot "cheap stuff" that was clearanced or a lesser known company was around $800.

We had heard of a few places we may be able to get it cheaper, but we were kind of disheartened by it all. I mean, if HD had it clearanced at $1.47 a SQF, how much cheaper could it get? Plus the clearanced stuf was kind of ugly. Real light and plain looking and it just wasn't what I envisioned for our home. We decided to at least do the dining room (I hate eating our food over a carpet with kids! It just stays stained all the time) and save for the living room for when he got back.

On Friday we got a flyer for a place called Ollie's Bargain Outlet . Now, if you saw this paper advert, you wouldn't take it seriously. I didn't for a YEAR while I lived here. Every few months we'd get some flyer with Ollie on it, a cartoony looking grandpa figure with a buck tooth grin and a hawaiin print shirt. It adverstised the usual bargain stuff... mix matched sheets, discontinued toys etc. I never went there. Yet, this time, something told me to try it. They had laminate for NINETY SEVEN CENTS! a SQF! Wow.

We went there on Saturday, walked around, and took a gander at all the stuff. We didn't make a beeline for the laminate. I think Tony had the same attitude as I had, we didn't want to get too excited only to be sorely disappointed over a) the ad being too good to be true or b) if the laminated was that cheap it would really, really ugly. We perused the toys, the kids found some Nintendo themed wall stickers for their rooms (Aislinn has Pokemon on her side, Jonny Nintendogs on his) and we found some super cheap beef jerky.

We wandered over to the home section and were immediatley struck by their HUGE rug selection. I don't know if I'd be able to FIND a rug there I liked, but I would have fun trying. We saw where the laminate was and we took our sweet time to get there. When we got there, we were honestly and TRULY surprised!

The laminate was NICE! It even had a little bit of texture to it, it wasn't just flat. The color wasn't exactly what we were looking for, but we could definitely be ok with it for that price and when we got it home we realized it matched everything we already had perfectly, so it worked out well. We got all we needed and the underlayment for a bit over five hundred dollars for both rooms!

Tony has most of it done. He just needs to do the step (our living room is sunken by a foot) and the trim. We also plan on painting too. This is driving me nuts. The pictures I have all have a teal accent to to them. On the color wheel the "warm" complimentary color would be peach, and the cool a yellow. I was thinking of doing a gold, not yellow, but more orangy/brown/gold/honey. Actually honey is a good way to describe what I mean. Or doing a very dark brownish pink. I'll take pictures as soon as I find the camera somewhere in this mess!

You know I couldn't end this without talking about my Louie. He's doing good. He's letting us know more and more when he has to go to the bathroom by standing in front of the door. Whenever he stands by it, I let him out, even if he doesn't have to go just so he can know that if he stands by it, he'll get a response. It sucks though because if we don't notice him, he will just wander off and pee. In the morning I'm the only one who can take him out. If Tony takes him out, he won't go poop. Tony can sit out with him for twenty minutes and he'll hold it and then run upstairs to poop. I also think he hates having to go in his crate when he doesn't go. My thinking was... if he goes outside and doesn't pee or poop (when I think he should be pooping like after eating) then he goes in his crate. Tony and the kids think this is mean. But, I can't have him wandering around pooping in the house just because they think he should be free. I recently got a dog training book that said to do this very thing! It was good to see my instincts were right. When he poops or pees then he is free to run around. When it's time to go again, if he doesn't go then back in his crate he goes. He doesn't like it, but he doesn't fuss much anymore, only when we eat. He just now lays down and goes to sleep and is now sleeping in his crate at night. Another thing the book said was that when you get a new puppy home, one option is to sleep with him at night with him in your bed. This would be a good way to transition him. We did this too! When we made the transition from our bed to crate it was easy. The first night was whining for about five minutes and that was it. We noticed he wasn't interested in sleeping with us. He used to sleep between us or in my arms, and then moved to the bottom of the bed, then one night he jumped down and slept on the floor. That's when we put him in his "den" at night.

He's also learning to wait before going in and out of a door and drop it. I really love drop it since he runs off with just about everything he can get his puppy mouth on. There are some things he gets pissy about and a bit snappy over. It's hard having kids to deal with as they chase him around and try to yank things out of his mouth and don't give him anything in return or praise him for giving it up. He gets possesive of his things and can get aggressive. I'm working on him with this, and everytime he drops it, even if he growls at me and I have to pry it out, as soon as I have it in my hand I give him good boys and give him one of HIS toys or a treat. Today he ran off with Aisy's granola bar that fell out of her backpack. She immediately chased him making him run, and I just said in my stern voice "Drop it" and he did.

Also, today when I went out front I made him sit and wait, and when I came back from teh van he was STILL sitting there waiting for me! Having a dog feeds my controlling side I swear.

Leah, well she's a cat and even though she's sweet and snorgely she just does what a cat does, sleep and eat and poop. I swear this cat does NOT shed. Today, me and Tony ran our fingers through her roughly to see if we could pull out any hair, and none came out! It's awesome!