Home Improvement Part 2

So, I gave it my best effort. Here are some before and after pictures. Maybe when I put the furniture back in and make some kind of curtains and new pillows and find a rug to match then I will post that.
These are the front room BEFORE:
Please note, these photos were also taken BEFORE this:
Side note: How can you not love that face? Deedle always talks to this 160 pound beast as if she were a baby, saying, "you so cute, you cute little baby molly."

Regarding wainscoting: success! I really had no idea if I could do it and nobody told me if I could or couldn't because I just looked at photos in magazines and decided to do it. I was surprised that I could actually make the squares come together nicely.

Regarding wood floors: semi-success. The plan was for me to put down 600 square feet, including the living room, a hallway, and a large family room. I did a lot of the living room myself. Then I started to cry. Then Chancho said he would take the day off on Monday to help me finish it. Then we finished it but he got super cranky and said he hated it and we both hurt ourselves and got lots of splinters. Then we called a guy in our ward who lays flooring for a living and asked if we could hire him to do the rest and he said yes and for a very good price. So, the front room is done and the rest of the floor will be put in some time in the next month.

Front room during the process:
Things that I used in the past week that I had never used or never heard of before: a floor stapler, a brad-nailer gun, a level, a rubber mallet, a table saw, a chop saw, a floor saw, a pry bar, air compressor and hose, liquid nail, and a chalk liner.

Front room AFTER:
What I have learned from this experience is that I like to do things with my hands and feel a great amount of satisfaction in seeing what I have created. I also gain confidence in myself when I realize that I can create something that I like with out having to buy it or pay an expert to do it. I also learned that Chancho would rather put in over-time at his current job than ever, ever, EVER try to put in a hardwood floor again.

Home Improvement

We have a light cream colored carpet, including right UNDER OUR KITCHEN TABLE. We didn't put it in, it was here with the house. And I invested right away in a carpet shampooer and I vacuum SO much and shampoo SO much. We were getting by okay. For six years I raised kids with this cream carpet!

Then along came Molly. I love our Molly. I really do. But she is a huge, stinky dog and she does not like to be away from us or outside, ever. She has now dug a hole under the fence and escapes every time we put her in back. Last night we went to a soccer game and were going to be gone 4 hours. Chancho nailed all these boards all over the gate where she pushes out and filled the hole with rocks and said that there was no way she was getting out. But of course we came home and she was just nicely sitting on our lawn in the FRONT yard waiting for us to come home after she had been gallavanting about the neighborhood for hours. She looks so sweet and innocent, right?

The past couple of weeks, Molly pees on the carpet in front of the back door all of the time. On Sunday we came home from church and she had pooped twice! Chancho always blames it on us. It is our fault that we are feeding her wrong or not taking her out when she needs it or whatever. And I'm sure he's right. Ugh. I try not to do housework on Sunday but of course this required 2 hours of scrubbing, vacuuming, and shampooing carpets.
But it wasn't so bad because something great and terrible has happened.

The great part is that last week I convinced Chancho that we need wood floors on all of the carpet upstairs except the bedrooms. I found a fantastic deal on a beautiful Caribbean Walnut--very fitting for our part-Caribbean family. (But, you ask, is it fitting that I help contribute to the deforestation of that dear-to-my-heart region by putting in this wood floor. Hm...)

The terrible thing is that part of what convinced him was me telling him that I could install it all myself with only a little help from him. The guy who sold it to me (he is the owner and I had my new, long wig on and he seemed to fall in love with me and wanted me to have a good deal and then we found out that we had all these strange connections through family in Dallas) gave me a class on Saturday morning. It took 3.5 hours because I had so many questions and took copious notes. He kept saying things like, "If you want a smooth transition right here you may just need a piece of t-strip." And I was like, "I have no idea what you just said." So he would have to show me. He showed me how to use a chop saw and a table saw and a floor stapler and a brad nailer and looked at my floor plan drawing and made notes for me of where to start and what to do in certain places and now...well...I am going to install our floors myself...and I'm terrified! Just don't tell Chancho.

I don't know if this means that we are moving or staying but with the deal I got, it was really not that much more expensive than re-carpeting and I just really don't see us being able to sell our house in this market with our carpet looking like this. Wood floors actually add to the value of your home, whereas carpet and Pergo do not. So, hopefully this was a good decision. In the end, whether we sell now or sell in five years, or 20, I think this is a good choice. And it WILL look beautiful. I have to keep trying to convince myself that!