Hardwood Adventures

What does a beautiful snow covered photo of the mountain have to do with hardwood flooring you might ask? Well this was just a snap shot of the fun filled adventurous day that we had!

The hardwood was scheduled to be delivered last Friday, but unfortunately it didn't arrive in Flagstaff in time. So the middle of our first big snowstorm of the year was the chosen time by Fed Ex. Well planned! The morning began with much shoveling. We shoveled the driveway the night before since we were expecting almost 2 feet total. Wow, is that steep driveway slippery! I can only shovel going down...luckily a neighbor lent us a hand with his big snow blower last night. This morning, we borrowed the one we have at our rental house. Andy had quite the technique to slide down the driveway with it, but it was too little and wimpy to throw snow on the way back up. Looks like we will be investing in a pretty heavy duty snow blower for the house!

The flagstone stairs are amazing. Fairly easy to shovel and great for walking up and down instead of slipping on the driveway. After we finished all of the shoveling, we waited for our 8-9 AM delivery of hardwood from the Fed Ex depot in Flagstaff. After a few hours, the sun came out and the beautiful northern Arizona sun helped to melt the snow. Since we were still waiting for the truck to arrive, I played around with the camera.

 Some pretty impressive icicles form on the metal roof that doesn't have a gutter. They will fall onto the roof below which does have a gutter, so hopefully nobody on the driveway gets speared!

Close to noon, we finally learned where our hardwood was...stuck in the truck that jackknifed on Blue Willow, the entrance road to our neighborhood. So we drove down the road to take some more photos of the adventure! The driver was okay, just needed a tow. So waited for the wrecker and watch the truck be pulled all the way up the hill. In the meantime it started to snow again.

 Glad it wasn't our driveway that they are making nice big dents in with the tow truck!

Finally the Fed Ex truck made it to our house safely and we now have 5,000 lbs of beautiful maple tongue and groove hardwood. We started moving the piles (shown here in the garage) up to the bedrooms to allow the wood to acclimate to our dry climate and the heated floors in the house. 

I was amazed at how long some of the boards are, at least 10 feet. The widths vary between 4.5" 5.5" and 6.5". The real fun of Christmas vacation will be installing the wood!