plugging away

We had such a looooooooong, yet productive day yesterday! We have awesome friends and family who work hard and who work quickly! In a little over 24 hours, we had the carpet out of every room (including one bathroom) in this 2100 square foot house. They pulled up carpet, padding, tack boards and every single staple in the entire house, sanded, then swept all the dust, applied a coat of paint thinner and finished up with a coat of finish. We also peeled more wallpaper and sanded several kitchen cupboard doors.

We were able to drive down to a flooring store and to Lowe's and pick out the kitchen and bathroom flooring, the kitchen counter tops and sink, and we bought the paint for the upstairs bathroom, the kitchen walls and the kitchen cupboards. A friend of mine came with us--while her husband was pulling staples out of the floor--and she picked out the perfect red for the front door, the back door, and for the french door dividing the kitchen and the mudroom.

Here's the upstairs hallway looking into my room (left) and the girls' room (right). The upstairs bathroom is to the left of my room.

my bedroom

looking down the stairs from outside of my bedroom

The hardwood upstairs and in the downstairs bedroom are made from a different wood. The slats are a lot wider and the color is nice and rich.

where the oven used to be...

It's been fun discovering all sorts of things that have been covered up in this old house.

Here they covered up the large cold air return vent in the downstairs hallway.

This was the bathroom with carpet...not a good idea for little boys! When I removed some of the wallpaper, I found a hand-painted mural hidden beneath.

This is what we found when we pulled off a set of kitchen cabinet doors...old flour or potato bins that pull out with hinges on the bottom. There are two stacked on top of each other.

I love these floors!

The kids had so much fun playing on one of the carpet scraps we pulled outside onto the back patio.

I know this isn't a great picture. I wanted to take a picture of the house at night without the flash. This is what I saw as I drove up to the house last night and it took my breath away. It's like it's all lit up inside!