in media res

Life since the wedding has been...busy. We thought we had mostly completed the house renovation (more on that later), but once we jumped from crazed DIY wedding mode to newlywedded bliss to adventure-of-a-lifetime honeymoon in New Zealand to holidays with family, we were left alone in the dead of a Maine winter, starting forlornly at the 1980's linoleum kitchen floor...

So, one cold, dismal weekend, when we would otherwise be snuggled up next to the stove, watching people do crap like this on HGTV and drinking copious amounts of hot, Bailey's flavored coffee, we did something about it.

The kitchen floor has long been the bane of my existence - the very first thing I did when I closed on the house was drive straight to the nearest Wal-Mart, buy a gallon of lemon-scented bleach and a clean-y brush, and proceeded to scrub the bejesus out of it.  Literally.  I used my key for the first time, basked briefly in the glow of home ownership, and got down on my hands and knees, hoping (foolishly and in vain) that lemony bleach would somehow erase the strange blue flowerish pattern and the random burn-marks that littered the floor.  Seriously, previous owners?  How do you burn through linoleum?  Without setting the rest of the house on fire?

Anyhow... a few weeks ago, we brewed up a big strong pot pf coffee, and scrubbed (again) every inch of the floor, first with bleach, and then with medium-grit sandpaper.  Then a nice, thick coat of oil-based Kilz, followed by 2 coats of springy green paint.  It won't be our floor forever - we have some nice slate/porcelain tile waiting in the garage for when we really rip in to 1980's Kitchen.  So we went a little fun with the color.  Then a coat of Polycrylic, which I love.  Nice coverage, dries fast...but the can we had on hand was not shiny enough for me.  So...I went over it polyurethane.  BIG mistake.  The whole floor (while pleasingly shiny) now has a vague yellow cast.  We moved our crap in anyhow.  We were done.  As was the weekend. 

You live, you learn...