You know how when you move into a new place, you begin daydreaming of all the things you’d like to change about the house “one of these days.”
We had quite a list; get rid of the linoleum in the foyer and put down tile. (Kevin put that down. Yes. He’s quite awesome).
Modernize the kitchen. (Before – After)
Put hardwood floors down in the living room / dining room.
Remodel the bathrooms (a coming [very] soon project. At least, I hope it happens soon. We still haven’t heard anything from our contractor. Kevin called them this past week and they were still waiting on materials. I know they want to have everything before they get started so they can do the job and get out, but still, I’ll breathe easier when they actually get started).
And rip up the carpet in our family room and put in hand-scraped hardwood.
Well guess what sort of “just happened?”
We were out looking at tile for our bathrooms (which we’ve picked out, by the way), when we spotted this gorgeous wood:
We quickly became sidetracked. We got to talking to the salesman and lo and behold, the floor guy, the SAME floor guy who put the tile in our kitchen and the hardwood floors in our living/dining rooms, was available for this coming week.
As in … this coming Monday.
As in … the day after tomorrow.
So. Because we knew this was something we wanted to do eventually, we bit the bullet and said, “let’s do it.”
The guy delivered the wood Friday.
(And yes. I have a candle burning just inches from our new wood. I like to live dangerously, apparently).
The wood has to have a few days to get used to the temperature of the room you’re going to place it in, hence the reason we have boxes of wood lying around our family room.
He’s supposed to come around 9ish Monday morning and he’s telling us he should have it done the same day. I’m really hoping he’s right and I come home to a brand new floor.
The carpet in our family room is only about six years old. It’s still in pretty good shape. The problem is, see that blue arrow above? About two years into it, the carpet began to buckle. We have no idea why. The family room is the room we use the most. At least, me and Kevin use it the most. (The boys barely step out of their rooms). So there’s a lot of traffic through the room. We’re also wondering if the carpet guys didn’t pull it tight enough when they installed it. But we knew that we would eventually replace it, so we never bothered having anyone come out to stretch it because why waste that money on something you plan on getting rid of anyway, right? So, we’ve been disappointed with the carpet.
The boys and I are going to work on emptying the bookcases later today (they don’t know this yet. Another little-known bonus about having teenagers in the house? Free labor). Tomorrow, we’ll work on moving everything out of the way for the floor guy. We’re going to buy some felt furniture protectors to put on all the furniture legs so when we put all of the furniture back into the room, it doesn’t scratch up our floors. And that reminds me, we need to buy a floor protector for my computer chair – one without the teeth, obviously.
So yeah. We’re the sort of people who toss ideas around and then BAM, do it.
Hey man, we don’t mess around.
View from the foyer entrance.
View from the kitchen.
View from the office.
Manage my energy levels. Which is really a round-about way of telling you I need to exercise. (Hey! I saw that yawn!!). Now that I’m working full-time, I must, must, MUST get control of my energy levels. My new job (I’m a scheduler for eight neurosurgeons – I know, you’re impressed, stop denying it), is mentally EXHAUSTING. It doesn’t SOUND like it would be exhausting – how hard is it to schedule appointments?? But. BUT. It’s so much more than that. It’s making referrals, it’s pre-certing tests with insurance companies, it’s answering calls from patients, it’s answering flags (requests) from nurses … well, you get the idea. 
Write From Karen 