Several people have already asked me why we were cutting birch plywood down into 2'x2' squares, well, here's why:
This is our new kitchen floor. Originally, before we found out how bad of shape the luaun was in, we were planning on just removing the carpet, painting and sealing the luaun, and living with that for awhile. Once we realized we needed to replace the luaun, we started looking around at Home Depot and Lowes. We found that we could get 1/4" birch plywood for only $5 more a sheet than luaun. Since we only needed 4 sheets, we decided to go ahead and upgrade to the birch ply. And to make it a little more interesting, I decided to put it down in a 2'x2' square checkerboard pattern (rotated the grain). Sunday was a busy day, but we got the whole floor down and patched all of the screw holes. Sunday and Monday night were spent debating if we should leave the floor as is and just poly it, or if we should stain it (and what color) before putting down the poly. We came to a decision... but I think I'll wait to show you what we are doing for the "after" photos :-)

I also made a new schedule yesterday. I'm always making lists and calendars, I find that it helps me stay organized. Plus, I tend to forget things if I don't write them down... Anyway, the new schedule is pretty ambitious, but it has us finishing up all of the major parts of the kitchen before we take a break for thanksgiving next week. So hopefully, by early next week, we'll have the cabinets all put together, the floor finished, and the walls primed and painted. We will still have a lot of other little things that we will need to do (some type of baseboards, finding and hanging shelves, fix the dishwasher, etc), but I'll be feeling pretty good if we can at least be that far. Plus, at that point, we would have a functioning kitchen.