We Did It!

I'm so proud of hubby and myself -- we finished the living room renovations on time and without any major incidents (OK, I had one cursing episode where I just had to walk away from the saw for a few moments... but no one suffered for it).

Timeline:

Thursday night, we painted the accent wall and two bookshelves (I have to admit, I was expecting the "Carribean Spice" to be a bit darker... suffice to say it is ORANGE... but it looks good in the finished room). We also moved about half our furniture outside and stored it under tarps -- which is good because it poured with rain, and even hailed at one point.

Friday: Since kiddo stayed at her Nana's Thursday night, we got up early and got at it right away. We finished off the painting, tore up the first third of the carpet and underlay, and chipped the tiles out of the entrance-way. After lunch, we started laying the flooring and by 4:00, we had about five rows in, running from the front door to the foot of the stairs. After dinner, kiddo came home with us and we had a quiet night upstairs, away from the mess.

Saturday: We started the day with a McBreakfast picnic in the livingroom, then kiddo packed her bag again and went off to Granny's for the day and another sleep-over. Hubby and I got to it at about 8:00 and by mid-day we were done the dining area.

We took a break to go grab lunch and get the basboard trim we needed (we saved quite a bit of money by getting over half the trim at Re-Store for 40 cents a foot, then getting the rest from Rona at $1.05 per foot). When we returned, we painted the used trim, then moved furniture over to the completed area, and kept going on the flooring while the trim dried. By 8:30 we decided (for our neighbours' sake) to lay off the cutting, so we wrapped up for the night; we got to the far side of the sliding glass door.

Sunday: Again, we started early, cutting the trim. All the cuts had to be done with a mitre saw, so my shoulder is pretty sore today -- there were a lot of corners. Naturally, this is the house that Suess built, so none of the walls are actually straight, either. Let's just say, "Wood putty is a good thing." We put in the last floorboard at 1:00, then broke for lunch. After lunch, we finished the edging on the last wall, touched up the paint on the accent wall, addressed some of the problem areas, and moved the furniture back into place. We rearranged the furniture on the "entertainment wall" but otherwise, stuff went back in its original places.

At 4:00, I picked up kiddo, came back, and started unpacking all the books and music we'd packed earlier in the week.