Night and Day

I came home from Italy last night and was... buh-dum-bum... floored.

Living Room Before (empty) - and After (moved back in):



(The snow is adding some crazy light from outside, hence the lightness of shade in the after photo... wall color is still the same.)

Kitchen Before (almost empty) and After (moved back in):


Just a sampling of the contrast our new and restored floors have made in the whole house. Seriously. Every room looks so different... the colors pop... the molding comes alive. No more hair, bubbles, nicks, and scratches. It's just perfect!
LOVE THEM!!!!

What Crazy People Do

This is what crazy people do the night before one of them is to leave the country for two weeks.

Packing was happening at multiple levels last night... boxes, a suitcase, Christmas tubs.

Kudos to Cliff for clearing the remaining rooms without me tonight - and to Aaron for his brawn last week with some of the bigger furniture and boxes. Anyone wanna help Cliff move this stuff back in? ;)

I can't even IMAGINE how awesome our floors are going to be when I get home from...

ITALY!!! (holy cow, holy cow, holy cow)

TILE IS DONE

Yessir. Been done for a week. We've been sort of relishing in the completion.

We still haven't put the sink back in. And to think, there was no ceiling light OR flooring of any kind in here.

Then we decided to commit sanity suicide by deciding Monday that we are definitely going to be laying hardwood in the kitchen and refinishing the rest of our hardwood floors beginning two weeks from today - which to be honest, two weeks from today I will be standing in Rome with my best friend (as she so kindly reminded me by text just now.)

Errrrrrrr. Mixed emotions for both of us on the refinishing - mainly regarding the removal of EVERYTHING that's not in Tileland (in Oldardwoodfloorland and Linoleumland) into Tileland. And we mean everything. Clothes in the closet, furniture, you name it, we're moving it. It's like moving out, almost. And then moving back in.

BUT. No more bubbles or random hairs polyurethaned in the floor, a darker more modern stain, and finally flooring in our kitchen that doesn't make you wonder who decided tealish blackish greyish spotted linoleum was a good choice.

After this it's ALL DECOR, ALL THE TIME. No fudging.

And by February, we'll have some spaces we're excited to people into, again.

But until then, don't expect an invite over anytime soon :)

Moving Along

Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture before we actually even started moving everything, because no, this:

is not what it originally looked like.

Imagine a red loveseat in the far right corner. The rusted orange seat in the corner just right of center. The black desk in the corner to the left. Yet another bookcase, this one black, stacked right about where the black one is - the brown one moved then to your left - both OVERFLOWING with books. And... just stuff. Stuff, stuff, stuff. The black metal shelving and dehumidifier and vacuum, well, those were all the last of the laundry room that I was moving as well this week. Study, laundry, and utility... all now housed in various other locations throughout our home because we're doing this:

Well, for starters at least.

I'll keep you updated as we move along.

House Progress

Here's a look at the house from pre-purchase to the work we've completed through last night.

Still quite a bit left to do, but we're getting there!