A Little Thing I Like To Call Progress

I thought I'd throw up a few progress pictures today just for fun. This was our little goodbye celebration for our carpet. I asked the kids to pose for me. As sentimental as I am about saying goodbye I had no problem saying farewell to that dirty, matted mess of a floor. I just love Emma's little cheerleader pose. She cracks me right up.

I was excited when I came home the next day to bare floors. And a refrigerator in the middle of my den. :) Buzz and I had never seen our house empty before. We bought this house from an older couple, and on the day our moving van arrived they had not yet finished moving out. THAT was a crazy day. Anyhow, the bottom line was that we had never seen the rooms here empty, so that was kind of fun.

But they didn't stay empty for too long. Here is the shoe molding that Buzz stayed up very late one night painting.

Wood! Wood is hard. (I wonder if that's why they call it hardwood?? Ha!) There are so many choices to make it is just overwhelming. Engineered? Sand and finish? Matte? Shine? Oak? Cherry?? In the end we went with a wide plank double hand scraped hickory. It is very rustic and weathered with lots of variation in the wood itself. We love it!

I told the workers what a dust-a-phobia I have and they were very impressed with my medical terminology. I put heavy emphasis on my concern for my kitchen cabinets and brand new light fixtures that have not even been dangling from the ceiling long enough to collect cob webs, let alone grout dust from tile take out. They were some good old boys. I was touched that they went the extra mile to protect my light fixtures and I kid you not they used six rolls of plastic to cover my cabinets so dust would not sift through the cracks and settle on my dishes and baking pans. This was clearly not their first rodeo, and I was (hopefully) not the first housewife to be over protective of her muffin tins and mixing bowls. It almost looked sterile enough to do a little surgery in that kitchen by the time they finished with it! That was before they turned on the air hammers and massive fans and started demolishing the white tile floors though. Those workers looked like Pillsbury dough boys by the end of the day. Even their eyebrows were white! They got every last bit of carpet and tile out and cleaned every speck from the foundation. Take out went quicker than they expected so they were one full day ahead of schedule!

Meanwhile, you may recall that back in September of 2005 (yes, 2005) I saw a photo in Southern Living that inspired me to remodel our downstairs guest bath. Buzz and Papa started building me a vanity out of hundred year old barn wood to look exactly like the one in the photo. Back in 2005, that was. Flash forward to modern day times when the painters were tearing the wallpaper out of my kitchen and dining room. On the fly, I shoved one of them into my guest bath and bid him to start removing wallpaper and start texturing the walls. I figured that if necessity was the mother of invention, perhaps she was also the mother of getting well intended projects from the olden days under way. As long as we're remodeling we may as well put the guest bath on the list.

Words can't describe how thrilled that old Buzzard was. :) I think he finds my spontaneity charming and endearing. I'm sure of it.

Anyhoo....new walls lead to new floors, and of course new floors can't go down with the old pedestal sink still in place. Not much of a problem since demolishing is built into the DNA of all males regardless of age. Buzzard, Papa, and Uncle Jim were all standing in my one person capacity guest bath sledge hammering my porcelain pedestal sink into smithereens while my two sons screamed and rooted and grunted in the hallway. It was the male bonding version of guest bath remodeling.

Sink was out in no time.

New floors went down shortly after that.

Flash back to the moment that the painters were standing in the hallway outside my guest bath, paintbrushes in hand, asking me three times in a row if I wanted to pay about five cents extra to go ahead and have the guest bath painted since they were painting the entire rest of the house. And in my impaired state of paint fume inhalation giddiness my response was something along the lines of, "Nah...It will be fun to go ahead and paint that myself."

The fallout from that decision resulted in this.............

A very unfortunate shade of mint green on the walls with splotches of plum, reddish, and teal all holding some degree of potential. The likes of this kind of decision making stress have not been felt since the great Autumn Blonde vs. Dromedary Camel debacle of July.

One thing is certain. Bead Board Buzzard came through for me and as of 2:30 a.m. yesterday I am thrilled to report I now have brand new bead board installed right behind where the potty will go. He's a darn good bird, and a rather patient one too.

I'm not sure how he ended up with indecisive me and my ever increasing collection of paint samples, but I do know this..... Whatever shade of bathroom walls he ends up with when this is all said and done will look smashing with the brand new hickory floors and will no doubt be an improvement over the previous wallpaper. Lavender stripes and pink flowers. I got nowhere to go but up, friends. :)

I'll check in later with the next batch of progress photos. I'm off to Home Depot to fetch a sample of blue paint that holds a whole bunch of promise.