#RealityWednesday: Here Is My Plywood Floor

When we built this house about 20 years ago, we did as much as we could with the money we had, but not everything was “finished.” For example, we picked up a kitchen sink for free from the side of the road, thinking we’ll just put that in until we find something better. Guess what? That sink is still there, complete with the somewhat worn cabinet underneath it.

And we really have no kitchen counters to speak of (not in the budget!), but we’ve got my grandma’s beautiful, solid Formica kitchen table right there, so that doubles as counter space. When we built the house, my parents gave us a new stove and refrigerator, which thankfully still work great. Tim’s parents gave us a washer and dryer. We replaced the dryer a few years back (found one with a groovy retro wood panel at one of those re-use places on Woodmere), but the washer still works great.

Similarly, we have a mish-mash of flooring. When the kids were little, I sprung for nice carpeting in the living room so they’d have a place to play, but the office area has ancient carpet from … wherever … and the kitchen and front hallway still have just the original plywood from when the house was built.

We’ve looked into nice flooring for those areas a few times through the years, but what little money we have at the time gets used up on something else (car repairs, mortgage, stuff the kids need, whatever), so it remains plywood after 20 years. I’ve thought about painting it, but that’s as far as I’ve gotten with it (and Tim’s sort of against the idea).

As a side note, when we built the house, my sister-in-law was telling us a story about how her aunt and uncle had plywood, thinking they’d replace it “soon,” but 20 years later, the plywood was still there. So, this post is in solidarity for all the members of the Plywood Floor Club!

We do, however, have beautiful polished pine floors on the second floor, but that’s only because the flooring up there is actually the ceiling down here. All the windows on both floors, though, still aren’t “finished.” But you know, you learn to live with things when money is tight. Sometimes I get in these moods where I wonder what it’d be like to have money for a nice floor. But then it passes.

And seriously, let’s get real. It’s not like we’re living in a shack with a dirt floor in a third world country. We have a lovely log home in the middle of northern Michigan paradise, where we grew up and raised our own kids. It’s a beautiful thing.

P.S. That church pew you see on the right-hand side of the photos? Picked it up for free at the dump one day. When we first hauled it in here, I had this vision of using it to put shoes on and whatnot, but it’s almost always covered with assorted stuff, not to mention the “tool area,” underneath it.