Bang! Bang! Bang! went the hammer.

Bang! Bang! Bang! it went some more.

I can't actually tell you the first time I heard the banging of the hammer as it was being used to drive nails into the curled-up edges of our old kitchen linoleum, but I can tell you the year it first happened: 1987.

That was the year our family moved into the house we now live in. It was also the year I said, "The first thing I want to do after we move in is buy new linoleum."

The chocolate-brown flooring with its hexagon pattern made the kitchen dark and creepy. New linoleum first, I thought, then replace those ugly, mustard-yellow counter tops. I was full of decorating plans back then.

But, being practical-minded people, my husband and I agreed that there were other, more important things to take care of first: The century-old barn needed a roof, and laying a large cement pad in the driveway would give our two young sons a place to ride their pedal toys. Besides, my husband liked to work on cars, and the cement pad would be nice for that, too.

So, instead, Steve hammered a few brass roofing nails along the raised edges of the linoleum.

"Now no one will trip and hurt themselves," he explained, promising that maybe next year there would be money for new flooring.

Next year came, but there were still other things that needed doing. An attic fan would help move the air during the hot summer months, saving us on air-conditioning costs; and a wood-burning furnace made sense, especially since the back part of our property is wooded.

So we installed the fan and furnace, but the seams in the linoleum continued to rise, held back only by the shiny bright heads of more roofing nails.

Soon, I was pregnant again, and new babies always set home improvement projects back some. Our daughter was born two years after we moved in, and I remember rocking her in the kitchen and watching the boys drive their toy tractors over the raised seams of the linoleum, as if they were ridges in a farm field, just like grandpa used to do. Their tractors would pull farm wagons filled with dried beans, and sometimes the beans would spill when the boys drove them over the tiny hills.

And so the years came and went, and the edges of the linoleum continued to push their way upward. "Bang! Bang! Bang! went the hammer. Bang! Bang! Bang! it went some more.

Before long, there were long rows of shiny nails marching double file along a half dozen seams in the linoleum, their shiny flat heads polished by heavy foot traffic.

In early January, 18 years to the month after I first declared my intention to have new kitchen flooring, my husband - with help from the children, all grown up now - pulled more than 120 nails from the kitchen floor, tore off the ugly, brown linoleum, and laid down beautiful new tile.

To mark the occasion, I saved several patches of the old flooring, cut them into bookmarks, and wrote on the back of each: "He who has patience can compass anything," words of wisdom attributed to the 15th-century Italian monk François Rabelais.

Now I'm working on replacing those mustard-yellow counter tops!