A New Year

As we were getting ready for our annual Thanksgiving trip, I was looking back and realizing where we were last year compared to this year on the house. Last year, just before we left for Thanksgiving we had just put in the flooring in our living room. I thought it would be fitting to show you some before and after. It's amazing to look back at how much we have done to this house and how different it looks!

Here is the living room before we even closed escrow. The grey ceilings, forest green carpet, lovely fireplace wall, pinkish walls… The picture just doesn't do the colors justice.

The entry way, straight from the 80's with that light.

Here is a picture I found that does show a bit of the ceiling, we ended up painting it because the wood had a stain on it that didn't really look natural. In the picture it looks grey, it wasn't quite that color. I was really nervous about paint white and didn't want to loose the exposed beam look, so we picked a dark brown for the support beams going all they way across.

We also painted the walls a more neutral color and wanted a accent color on the fireplace weird wall thing to spice it up.

It took me forever to decide what to do with that wall. I was hoping there was rock behind it and I could just remove that lopsided piece of drywall, but there wasn't, so I had to leave it of completely re-do it. With everything else, we were not about to add another huge project, so it stayed.

In go the floor! This was huge! It made such a difference for us. We could finally sit and watch TV at night. We only have or at the time had 1 TV. We went from June to Thanksgiving without the TV. Also, the constant mess in the main room of the house. There was just no relaxing.

Here is the entry way.

Since I am the one behind the camera, you can't actually see how much work I did myself. But the hands are proof. Anyway, Mr. C's dad helped me start the floor in the living room and worked with me till he had to go to work. I was determined to get it done before Mr. C got home from work that evening so I just kept going… for hours… all by myself. I was pretty good at the miter saw and Mr. C (the perfectionist) was pretty comfortable with my skills on it that he had no problem with it. 

Anyway, back to the story. When I got to the last row by the wall, I needed the table saw (something I had not used yet) to cut the boards long ways. So, I went ahead and pulled out the table saw, knowing I've watched it being used enough that I would be just fine. The only problem was, I didn't know how to turn it on. I found a big red + on it with an arrow. I figured that was it, but wasn't sure. So, I called Mr. C at work to ask how to turn it on. He was busy so I asked if his dad was there was available. He was, so I confirmed with him that was how you turn it on. Shortly after, maybe on my second cut a truck come speeding down the street and stops at my drive way. It's was Mr. C's dad rushing over at the instructions to supervise since he was done working for the evening and Mr. C wasn't quite finished. Then another short while later another truck comes speeding down the street and stops at my house. This time it was Mr. C himself. Good thing I didn't cut my finger off. I would have never heard the end of it! But they did arrive in time to finish the last maybe 6 boards and make it look like they did all the work. So, there you have it, it looks like they did all the work.

Now, I can use the table saw when ever I want without a question of my skills.

Incase you wondered where the little ones were while I worked on the floor...

Mr.s C's mom came over for a while, the they found their own ways to entertain themselves. They got quite used to doing that those days.

Here is the entry way, all one uniform floor.

Living room looking toward the entryway.

Again looking to the entry way, but showing part of the kitchen. I love that we were able to make the floors but up to each other at the same height!

That was last Thanksgiving and below, this is this Thanksgiving, hours before we left for our trip. I thought there was a mess on the ground, but that is actually C & L playing.

Notice the updated light?

Before again...

Now...

Last Thanksgiving...

Now...

The before doesn't even look like the same house! If you look closely, you will see some finishing touches that we still need to do, but the progress is very slow these days.

After a long Thanksgiving weekend, I am very tired, but anxious to get this post up. I thought I would have wifi when we were gone, but didn't. So, hopefully there are not too many errors in my writing.

Kristen