Progress - Flooring

While I haven't posted, we have certainly made progress on the house. I am going to break it up into all different posts so I have updates to share as I choose :).

Lessons Learned in Reno Progressively: You get more work done when you don't live at the house. For us this rings true because we have a toddler in bed by 7:30pm which restricts what improvement projects we can do because of noise. And we had family in town for William's birthday party/real birthday/Easter so we enjoyed three days with them instead of working.

So let's talk flooring since I did a whole post on it earlier. The carpet installers from Lowe's spent 7.5 hours installing carpet in 6 bedrooms of our house. We used two types of carpet: one for the four bedrooms and another for the two "bedrooms" in the basement.

Basement guest room

New carpet pad down

New carpet installed!

Removing the old and installing new carpet breathed a fresh breath of life into our house. It smelled fresh, it looked fresh and it looked updated and was what we wanted. We are glad we decided to go ahead and install all of the carpet at one time because the original carpet was old, discolored and stinky. Plus, since we spend alot of time playing on the floor, it probably wouldn't have been the best healthwise for young children.

Now Brad also finished our beautiful Pergo floor in the living room (large area, about 28x17). He did a great job and we are working on putting up new floor trim. Everyone compliments our floor and we are so happy with the color and material selection we made.

How did I contribute to the flooring process? Well, besides painting the floor trim in the bedrooms once the old carpet was removed, prior to the new carpet being installed, I also decided to pry up the flooring in the entryway (shown below). You don't need to remind me I was 34 weeks pregnant, my husband did that. I just sat on the floor and pulled up the pieces with a small crowbar, it wasn't too difficult. This area is going to have the same Pergo floor once we get the time to make noise for a couple hours to get it installed.

Happening this Week

The whole idea of waking up early because I am finally sleeping better has its benefits. By 7:15am today I packed two boxes (one was 95% of our spice cabinet) and put the ingredients in the bread maker for some fresh bread (traditional white bread…added Rosemary). Today the carpet installers come to lay new carpet in the four bedrooms and two rooms in the basement…pictures to come!

I have grandparent assistance again so William doesn't have to wait around with me for the installers. Once the carpet goes in and tack strips with nails aren't all over the place, the house will be a much safer place for him to be. It also means I can bring a box of toys so he can be there with us without us being so worried about his safety.

Hopefully I can unload a few kitchen related boxes while I am there by myself. There is much more cabinet space in our new home which is exciting but also a little daunting. We do not have an official pantry, but there is a long refrigerator height door with pull out shelves and plenty of additional cabinets for food if needed. I would rather limit our food to the refrigerator and "pantry" as I do now, because as a family of three it is enough and prevents food from going to waste if hidden in the back of a cabinet. Also, in our current home, I have a linen closet in the dining room. Our new house does not have a formal dining room, so there is not a linen closet either. So, I will be storing tablecloths, napkins, servingware, etc in kitchen cabinets as well as the buffet that was in our kitchen.

Also while at the house I hope to assemble William's birthday banner since his party is next weekend! Also want to cut the food tent cards and maybe put some new white paint in the bathroom closets. We will see…I have been told to take it easy and my feet, hands and knees are also asking me to lighten up!

Also happening this week: DirecTV, satellite internet installation and hopefully some slow unpacking/transfer of items from once house to the other since we just live up the road.

Lessons Learned in Reno: 1st Weekend

On Friday we started working on our new house! My husband picked up the flooring at Lowe's and we spent some time that afternoon enjoying the place we will call home (or "my farm" if you are my two year old).

Lesson 1: Main living areas look better WITHOUT carpet.

Living room on Saturday morning

Living room on Saturday evening

Lesson 2: Old mauve carpet looks best thrown out on the front lawn!

Photo of the carpet and pads from the two upstairs bedrooms

Lesson 3: Paint trim white! On Sunday we went and picked up a new gallon of Valspar White semi-gloss paint to start painting the trim throughout the house, mainly the bedrooms. New carpet will be installed on Tuesday so painting trim before carpet is installed is much easier and allows us (or me) to not have to be super exact.

Lesson 4: This house is going to be where we live for many, many years and raise our children. It is a wonderful feeling. It is so relaxing to walk outside and not see neighbors, only our land. I so like people, but it just seems so "zen."

Lesson 5: (No photo). We are lucky to have grandparents nearby to keep William while we work on the house. He spent both days this weekend with my mom and had a wonderful time. We missed him lots, but couldn't have gotten as much done as we did without her help.

Weekend 1 achievements:

- removed all carpet (about 1900 sq ft worth) and brought to the local "beauty spot" to dispose of it

- laid our beautiful new floor in the living room

- removed all of the window grates and cleaned the inside of the windows

- painted all the floor trim in the master bedroom and started the other large upstairs bedroom
- removed the floor in the entryway in preparation for our new floor
- in the laundry room, we removed a handful of boards with nails hanging out (as hooks), a large MDF bookcase once used to stack shoes to the ceiling and a broken wire rack