We are delighted to announce that our brand new dance floor is now ready, thanks to the efforts of our valiant team of volunteers.  A huge thank you to everyone who helped transform stacks of materials into 1000 square feet of professional sprung dance floor in the space of a weekend. 

Our plywood was delivered on Friday and we focused our efforts on creating the floor map and labeling each piece of plywood.  This was followed by arts and crafts hour, where we attached (with super glue) a grid of spring-form rubber pads to the underside of each piece of the base floor layer. 

Specifically designed for dance floors, these pads provide the correct amount of cushioning to protect the dancers’ legs and absorb the impact when landing out of jumps. 

It's always nice to have an interior designer on hand, so on Saturday we laid out the plywood according to Cait's configuration, ensuring that the pads supported all seams in the first layer.  The second layer of plywood followed in a cross-grain pattern over the first, and we then broke out the power drills and deposited about 3500 screws into the top layer to secure the entire structure.  Sunday we attached 650 vinyl tiles to cover the entire floor with a slip-free surface that's pretty much bullet-proof, so hardshoes won't do any damage.  And it sounds amazing! We finished up with some black rubber nosing around the edges to prevent catching toes.

Here are the people we need to thank...

Maureen and Tony Hampshire: It goes without saying that our amazing parents were with us every step of the way, putting in long hours at the studio and getting to know the great staff at the Okotoks Home Hardware on a first-name basis!  As always, we couldn't have done it without you.

Tiegan Hurtak: Our intrepid instructor was a steadfast support over the entire weekend, taking on every job with a positive attitude which helped to dramatically speed up the process.  Thanks Tiegan!

Dave Van Oirschot: Although Dave was working night shifts all weekend he still managed to stay all day on both Friday and Saturday to lend his engineering expertise to the project.  Dave pulled everyone together right from the start, helped design the floorplan, and had the patience of a saint with all of us spacial-relations-challenged people (Ali has a degree in English, so you can imagine how incredibly useful that was.)  He even brought in his flooring drill that literally cut our time on Saturday in half.

Mark and Suzanne Ryan: Mark and Suzanne drove all the way from northwest Calgary to enjoy a lovely day of being covered in sawdust and glue.  And for the record, Suzanne is a machine with a power drill, so no messing with her at the next OIDA meeting!

Dustin Lottis: Dustin (or "Mr. Dude" as Bree, Kashley and Genna have nicknamed him) joined us on Sunday to help with laying down the vinyl over the plywood and was a huge help when not pretending to drop tiles on Tiegan's head or stepping on the double-sided flooring tape.  Seriously though, we couldn't have made it through the final day without him.

Monica, Daniel and Bree Mullaghan:  Big thank-yous to the whole family who helped with various gluing, cutting and lifting tasks throughout the weekend.  Kudos especially to Bree who laced up her hardshoes and christened the new dance floor with a treble jig. She reports that it feels great to dance on!

Alison and Caitlin Selwa:  Many of these photos are Alison's work. She was very excited to help us document the process!

The floor looks great and we're so excited to settle into our new studio home.  Remember that our summer workshop starts on Thursday, August 26th.  The new floor awaits and we’re looking forward to seeing you all then!