Furniture Face Off

On a previous post, you'll see the couch placed on the far wall of the living room. This was Mike's suggestion. I wanted to try it on the opposite wall from whence it started. So of course, on Monday, Mike moved it where I wanted it.

But I have to admit, after starring at it and thinking about it for Tues-Wed, I couldn't help thinking that I didn't like it. It divided the room - which I thought I wanted when I envisioned the arrangement. But in practice, it was too much of a division and left little room for Mikey to play on the floor, which is what I really wanted for him.

And on Thursday I couldn't shake the thought as I sat at my desk, leisurely working on a non-mission-critical project. Then, I had a crazay idea. Mikey was at day care that day... I could rush home at lunch, put down the old rug, and rearrange the couch. The more I thought about it, the more excited I became.

When noon came around, I was on my coffee induced mission home. Arrived in 15min, vacuumed the floor, carried the rug up from the basement, put down the carpet pad, put down the carpet, moved the couch back to the far wall, and vacuumed the carpet. I was back to work by 10 after one and sweaty as hell. But I was lovin the results!

Then, the call came in. I hadn't even gotten to the office - I was just getting off the highway in fact, when my phone rang. Day care. Mikey was running a fever. And wouldn't you know, I had to get back to the office, make a host of phone calls, turn around and go back past my house to day care, pick up the poor baby, take him to the doctor's, pick up a sandwich (5 dollar... 5 dollar foot looong!) (Gimmee a break, I hadn't eaten lunch and was ready to pass out.) and returned home.

Yeah - teething plus double ear infection plus a cold... equals one unhappy baby.

Luckily for me, Mikey took a nap around 5. And I should have relaxed. But no, I got my 5th or 6th wind and got back to moving and arranging and re-arranging furniture. I put in the chair, then one end table, then the second end table... moved the end tables several times until I liked them. I added the lamps, cleaned up a bit, and then stood back to admire the result.

I loved it.

Mike got home, visibly impressed. He wanted to bring back the entertainment center and get the TV going again. But I just didn't have it in me - no way I could lift up that thing. Not to be deterred, Mike called our neighbor, who was happy to lend a hand for a few beers.

Couch - TV - lamps - end tables - rug... not the new rug of course.

And look at all the room for Mikey to play!

And from the opposite angle.

And from the side.

All that remains is the bar and some smaller items. And of course, when the rug arrives next Wednesday, everything is going to have to be nudged out of the way. No big deal.

Despite the exhaustion from all the running around, the site of that room just made me so happy. It's so funny, I said to Mike, "It's like we have a real living room now!!" And it's true. It doesn't feel like a stinky old house. It feels grand!

And we watched TV on the couch for the first time in weeks and weeks. It was awesome.

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Back to Green

This living room project has gone incredibly smoothly so far. I'm not sure what it is... maybe we're just sick of living sans living room... but Mike and I continue to work together, hunkering down to do what we need to do to finish quickly.

On Tuesday night, Mike brought home the ceiling paint and painted the ceiling. Wednesday night, he brought home the green and we traded off. I cut in, he rolled, then I cut in a second coat, and he rolled out a second coat. We were finished with the green and all cleaned up and to bed by 11pm.


It really feels like our living room again, now that the green is back on the walls. Warm and comfy cozy.

Tonight I told Mike we should measure and cut the baseboard trim, and then stain it. The trim will need to dry before applying a second coat, so if we start tonight and 2nd coat tomorrow night, the trim will be ready for installation by Saturday. Mike doubts we'll be able to finish the floor in one day... but I'm cautiously optimistic. Plus, with the trim finished ahead of time, we'll be one step closer to bringing the furniture back in.

That's the worst when you finish the floor and you want to bring in your furniture so badly... but you have to wait two days for the trim to be stained and installed.

Also tonight, I'm going to task myself with re-installing all the switch plates and recessed lighting trim. I've got to move all the painting/drywalling accouterments down to the basement too. Technically the window trim and all the curtain rods could be re-installed as well, but it's not necessary, so I'm not going to worry about it. We don't need to kill ourselves before the weekend arrives.

And the rug. Yeah I've got to order that thing. Already it's not going to arrive in time, but I'm not going to let that stop us from bringing in the furniture. Even if it's just the couch.

It's the home stretch and I'm psyched! Got to keep up that motivation level up there!

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Missing All the Action

It's a sloooo day. Relaxing in fact. Soothing. Yeah.... soothing. So soothing in fact that I deleted the earlier blog I posted this morning in favor of the greater good. For those of you who missed it, yeah, I was pretty miffed. I could get riled up and miffed off again pretty easily - I'm still not very happy with my situation, but I'm going to give giving a second chance and see what comes of it. Karma and all.

And I really think blogging about it will make things worse, so I'm ending the story there.

The weekend. Where should I begin? We cleared out all we could from the living room over last week and Saturday. A timely HD coupon worth 0% for 12mo's found itself well used on everything I could think that we'd need to finish the downstairs - front door trim, stairway trim, hallway trim, plywood, baseboard trim, mudroom closet doors, mudroom trim, french door trim, caulk, and an eyeball. (Recessed light eyeball trim.)

Of course, due to a certain someone's late coming Saturday evening, plans for riding on Sunday, and inclement weather for Sunday night/Monday/the rest of the week - Mike had to run around like crazy taking all the measurements for all the crazy trim work first thing Sunday morning. I couldn't even help him write it down... I had my hands fulla baby.

And he wasn't too happy about that - like it was all my fault that his plans nearly screwed up an entire winter's worth of projects riding on this one opportunity for 0% financing that by the way expired today so it all had to be purchased over the weekend.

Ok, moving on -whatever. We made it, we purchased, and who knows what we forgot and how badly we measured. Already I know we missed window bottoms. The good news is that in all the confusion and miscellaneous woods and trims, the lady at the register missed a big chunka stuff. We definitely made it out of there with more then we paid for.

That evening, after riding, Mike started pulling up the old wood floor, finishing about a quarter of the room before it just got too late. He was tired, I was tired. Little Mikey was tired.

Today is really the big day. The day to take up the rest of the old floor and put down the plywood. That's a full day right there. I'm sorry I have to miss out, although happy to have a sloooo and soothing day. Next order of business drywall.

Pics to come!

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The Last Splinter

Walking across the living room from the kitchen... doo be doo be doo.
In slipper socks.... comfy comfy comfy.
Then out of nowhere - extreme foot pain! (Great band name, Extreme Foot Pain with their new #1 smash, "Giant Splinter")

I collapsed onto the couch, put up my foot and wouldn't cha know, there was a giant jagged piece of wood sticking out of it. Yes, somehow my foot caught and pulled off a bit of the old and damaged hardwood floors, which somehow lodged into multiple layers of foot skin - through a thick and comfy slipper sock. And it was extremely painful. After removing the giant jagged piece, I had to hobble into the bathroom for the tweezers to remove the rest. Even now I have a little red dot on the bottom of my foot to show for the whole ordeal.



For me, it was the last straw.... the last splinter. These floors have to go. I'm not waiting for Mike to finish this vehicle madness anymore. He's spent more then the last two weekends trying to put his camaro back together, which, he rationalized to me, was because he needed to be able to move it in and out of the garage so he could get the truck in there to be able to work on it. Uh-huh. The motor was already in the TA - why not just.... no, no, I'm not even going to get myself started on that rant. Sometimes you just have to hold your tongue in favor of the uneasy Vehicle Peace Treaty both parties have been trying to uphold since the end of summer.

*The Vehicle Peace Treaty acknowledges that both parties have the right to own his/her selected vehicle(s) and purchase parts for said vehicle(s) using not unlimited but moderate fundage as needed for irregularly scheduled maintenance and emergency breakdowns. Both parties agree not to bitch and/or nag about the amount spent on or choice of vehicle(s) by the opposite party. An unlimited amount of time will be given to work on any and all vehicles in breakdown situations and is ineligible for matched babysitting makeup time. Work on any and all vehicles will not be considered free time and therefore is ineligible for guilt trips. Both parties agree that each has chosen their own vehicle(s), rendering all complaining about said vehicle or the state of said vehicle or the amount of time needed to fix said vehicle null and void.

You get the idea.

So I'm breaking my own promise to myself to finish the vehicles first. And Mike, who's actually quite sick of dealing with the vehicles... not to mention the cold and snow... jumped on the idea and ran with it. Today he's going to install the last of the reinforcing beams under the living room floor. Throughout the remainder of this week, we'll move all the furniture... somewhere. Probably mostly the mudroom.

And if luck is on our side, we'll be able to complete the plywood this weekend and get started on the drywall. (Not sure at this point if Mike has remembered that we need to repair and replace some of it... and repaint. He'll remember once we move that couch and there's a big ol' warped piece of drywall starring him in the face.)

Before pics comin' atcha!

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No Budget Transformation!

Remember the other post when I said I was going to steal some furniture and a rug from my guest room for the mudroom - temporarily of course, for the party?

Well - if it sounded a little bizarre to you, it did to me too and I had no clue what the consequences would be. But despite my misgivings, I did just that Saturday. Mike gave me a hand in the AM and we brought in the white rug and my little teal couch and a coffee table. The rug was a bit too long, but I hid one side with the couch and had to admit, it looked pretty good and comfy!

Then I put up the curtain rods - and let me tell you, the make-your-own-double-rod idea came out fabulously and easily!

Since the windows aren't trimmed out yet, and I know window treatments should be at least 4" up and 4" over from the window trim, I measured out 6" (2" trim) and installed the brackets.

To create the second rod, I just installed the smaller second rod brackets butt up to the first ones. This way, when I finally get curtains, they'll hide the brackets.


If you remember, I had already bought my sheers at the Linens 'n Things closing sale, and boy was I psyched about getting those up. And the minute I got down off my chair and stood back and looked at the room, I just couldn't believe it. The transformation was incredible - it looked awesomely comfy and the sheers were perfect and the rods were straight.


You don't want to know what my guest room looks like, but since we lock the cats up in there during the party - no one will have to look at it anyway.