Our kitchen has been wretched for a long time. The vinyl flooring was cracking and pulling away from the walls, it was sticky and hard-to-clean, nail heads were pocking through, etc.
So finally, I got a little extra work and a little extra cash and went "NOW! Now is the time I fix that floor and give my wife a nice place to do her culinary magic!"
And we went out and looked at real wood flooring. (Yes, I'm a snob about REAL WOOD!) What I really wanted were pine heartwood planks. I love the look of pine and its rustic feel.
But we didn't find any that looked right. And we quibbled back and forth over what looked nice and what didn't... and couldn't agree on anything affordable. So... I decided to take a different route.
Throwing my desire for real wood aside, I thought "Why not put down plywood and faux paint it? I could do a killer checkerboard pattern and then gloss urethane the heck out of it! It would rock! It would be green and white and JUST like living in Publix! Perfect!
But then I started tearing up the floor. 2 layers of vinyl flooring, followed by a dry-rotted 3/8" plywood layer, followed by some weird plastic tiles, followed by what I now suspect were asbestos tiles. With asphalt backing that stuck to the subfloor like babes used to stick to my brother. Before he got married, of course. (Now he and his babe have made a babe and all is well.)
Under all that... look at what we found!

Yup, pine plank flooring. I had been praying for the last year for a chance to put in wood floors for Rachel... and it turns out I'd been walking on them the whole time.
Now... it took me a couple of days to take the asphalt/tar off a lot of it. And it will take me today to sand it. But then... it's time to stain and varnish. And this thing is going to look amazing!
Total cost (including buying a new sander): Around $200.
Can't beat that.
God is good.
-DG