So, my dears, you probably wonder what we’ve been up to the last few weeks.
Well, the biggest development was the we decided to carpet our entire second floor (bedrooms plus hallways and stairs), which required that we move everything from that level down into the main living area and the basement.
One heck of a major pain in the neck.
Especially for an 8-month pregnant gal and a guy with a broken hand.
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| The closet - halfway through the packing process |
It was a MAJOR JOB.
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| The guestroom - mostly packed and emptied |
And we had to do some pretty significant plaster patching, painting, baseboard removal, door removal, and a few general construction activities before installation could occur. Oh, and finish the stair banister.
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| fully emptied |
Before I go any further, let me preface this post by saying that the decision to cover up the beautiful hardwood floors with carpet was not lightly made.
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| The empty closet |
In fact, we agonized over it. Back and forth, we waffled, questioned, flip-flopped and second-guessed ourselves.
We adore the classic look of wooden floors. It’s timeless. Plus they’re easy to clean. [a factor that rates pretty highly in my book. Roomba is a champ at dust and dog hair removal from wood floors]
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| The master bedroom - emptied of most everything except the really heavy stuff |
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| We packed the upstairs bathroom with as much stuff as possible as it meant fewer trips lugging things down the stairs |
- They were in desperate need of refinishing/repair. Scratches, dents, paint marks, missing sections etc.
- Loud. Very loud. We had squeaks and creaks and all sorts of crazy noises. Any person walking down the stairs sounded like a herd of elephants rumbling by.
- Cold on the tooties in the morning. This was actually a big one: our house is old. Low in insulation. With single pane windows. Adding carpet might marginally warm things up a bit. Or at least make that midnight dash from bed to bathroom a little less painful (and believe me when I say: at 8 months pregnant, I’m doing a lot of midnight dashes)
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| Partway through carpet installation: fancy blue padding. |
And so, my dears, we chose function over fashion.
Warm feet over classic lines.
The beast is grateful. He loves carpet.
And, the nice thing is that the lovely wood floors are still there. So when some future homeowner pulls back that (tired, out-of-date) carpet in 20 years, they’ll say: "Hey! Check out these awesome wood floors!! What idiot would want to cover these suckers up?!" Hopefully by then the casa will be equipped with insulation and double pane windows.
You might have noticed that we didn’t get a few critical tasks completed before the carpet installation, namely: the walls and baseboard. We wanted to paint them. But we were working on the installer’s schedule and frankly, a lot of baby room stuff was dependent on getting our carpet in. So that was the biggest priority. We’re going to lay down some fancy construction-grade plastic wrap and start painting. And pray that we don’t get lots o’ paint on the brand spankin’ new floors. Fortunately, we only have to paint to within four inches of the carpet as the baseboard will cover up the gap between the two. We’re setting up a baseboard painting station in the basement.
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| A good view of the finished [and freshly painted] railing. WHOOHOOO!!! |
Such is life, my dears.
And to all the lovely people that came up with great suggestions for trying out paint colors on the walls (without having to actually paint the walls): I read every one of your suggestions and then went ahead and painted on the walls anyway. My apologies, my dears. I didn’t have enough paper, time, or patience to do anything else. This is what happens when I rush. Fortunately, I have quite a bit of primer so we can just do a quick bit of white-washing before applying the final product.
