0 to 60 in... a couple of days

Here's the "zero" - from before we moved in. Don't worry, those drapes left with the previous owner.


And here's the work of just 2 days. Ceiling retextured. Carpet out. Walls and trim painted. Ceiling fan installed. New sheets. Now all we need is maybe some curtains, and a couple of matching night stands.


I feel so grown up now!! A good thing, since we are expecting to become parents in the next few weeks! See next post!

Demo Fever

Demo fever is something that August and I both suffer from on occasions like... this past Wednesday night. For some reason it just seemed like tearing up the carpet in the hallway was more appropriate than continuing to work on the kitchen. So that's what we did... No more carpet staircase either.

What we found was a mixed bag - the hallway looks pretty great. Just like the living room / dining room, that red oak is some tough stuff. The staircase is in worse shape. Its made of pine... Who's bright idea was that? I don't know if the picture below really shows how banged up they are. I mean its not *terrible* but it is the first thing you see when you come in the front door... so.... I don't think replacing the treads will be a big deal. There are only 11 of them in the entire house.

We have wood floors!

We have had a fabulous Labor Day Weekend with 2 visitors - Wanda and Bill. We have done some of the usual tourist stuff - national park, Coors, etc - and also some house work. The recessed lights are DONE and the carpet is gone!! The recessed lighting turned out to be quite simple. Well, maybe not so simple for August who did all the work in the attic. Actually all I did was change the layout several times and screw in the light bulbs. The upgrade is really nice though, and the can lights are not that expensive.

One thing we did learn: dimmable fluorescents may sound like the coolest thing since sliced bread, but they are not. Not yet anyways, we need to give them a few more years to refine the technology. They don't dim all the way, at about 30% they just flick off. The light itself is too "blue", and as you dim them it turns more blue. And, they cost $12/piece. This compared to the incandescents at $3... So, we took at $60 worth back to Lowe's and bought the regular ones...

Here are some pictures of our adventures:

Score!

Well, the move is now complete. Everything's very disorganized now, of course. I want to take it all to the goodwill. But guess what? We've discovered at least one very exciting thing about the new house: The ugly carpet is hiding wood floors!