Renos Pt 1

We have been saving for some time to refinish the floors throughout our entire house.  John ripped the carpet up two years ago because we didn't want Joshua crawling around on old, dusty carpet.  We ended up with even older, splintery hardwood splattered with paint.  A giant remnant of chocolate brown carpet solved the splinter problem in the living room, and aside from a few splinters, we mostly avoid problems in the dining room.  Unfortunately, not always.

We received money for Christmas this year and we finally had enough to do a really cheap laminate floor or refinish job on the downstairs only.  Carpet would be a lot cheaper than wood or laminate, but oil heat is dirty and we get a lot of dust.  Plus, wood is just nicer.

In the end we decided to hold out a little longer because doing a cheap laminate floor might not pay off in the end, especially if we sell.  If we're going to do this, we're going to do it right.  So today we have a guy coming in to give us an estimate; but yesterday while driving home, we got a flat and ended up having to replace two tires.  Our van is now wearing our floors.  Such is life.

We have more projects that need doing in this house than I can count.  I am a project person and this makes me happy.  I guess me and my house were a good match.  Anyway, we decided that while we are waiting for the possibility of floors, we will start taking off trim around the bottom of the walls and repainting it with some leftover paint from the basement.  And while we're at it--

Under several layers of paint in our dining room, there is wallpaper.  We ripped all the old wallpaper down from the living room, stair well and upstairs hall when we moved in, but decided to paint over the already-painted-over wallpaper in the dining room and deal with it later.  The time has come.  John pulled down the crown moulding this morning and now the task lies before us.  Of course, this will destroy my cheerful avocado green paint, and I love change too much to pass up a chance for it, so let's just say that the green will not be reappearing.  :-)

And because Walmart has very cheap paint, we've decided to pull all our bedroom furniture to the middle of the room, camp out in Joshua's bedroom for a while, and as we're able, paint the trim, doors and walls.  That room hasn't seen a paintbrush for years- if ever.  It lacks any sort of warmth or comfort and is definitely not the nicest place to go at the end of the day.  I might have a picture somewhere.

Ah, here it is.  This is the room when we moved in.  All we did was rip up the carpet and wash the walls...though John has since plastered some of the cracks in the walls.

This is our room now- we were in the middle of moving back in after my parents left at Christmas (they sleep in our room and we move in with Joshua- which he loves....for now), and it's messy, but it's real life.  Things just get messy sometimes.  If you're wondering why I took a picture at that particular time, I can't answer that.  I just do random things.

I love comparing before and after pics so I'll have to get a better one before we get started.  So there you have it- some of the latest happenings in our home.  If you ever wonder what I'm doing, picture me peeling little bits of stubborn wallpaper from our dining room for like, the next ten years. :-P