Living Room

It was nice to see the living room without the outdated furniture, but it left us with very little opportunity to "live" in until we can get our real furniture in the house. In the meantime, we "borrowed" some of my parents' lawn chairs, and they happily donated their old wicker patio set. It's hard to see, but the ugly chandelier is still there, along with the delightful curtains and some strange wall sconces.

Micah is such a sport and can clearly sleep anywhere as long as it is in his Rock'n Play.

Notice that Micah has not only one, but TWO beds already set up in our home. We have yet to blow up the air mattress.

I was so excited to get started! Hand me a brush coach! Put me in! Hahahahahha! Yeah, instead I was handed a package of sand paper and was told that my first responsibility was to sand down all of the wood trim. Say what? Yup. I had to get all of the gross "stain" and varnish off of the top of the wood if we ever wanted to be able to actually paint it.

The argument about painting vs refinishing the woodwork was a long and painful one. I was told that it would be a long and painful process that would set us back a lot more than I wanted. That sold me. Jason, on the other hand, was broken-hearted. We told him to trust us and to carry on with preparing to sand the floors. By the time the last inch of flooring was sanded, Jason realized that maybe refinishing all of the woodwork would have been a little more challenging than we originally thought.

Anyway, while I was busy sanding (I'm holding back my enthusiasm here), Rachel began trimming the room while my dad started working on the light fixture (two things I was completely unqualified to do and had no business getting anywhere near).

The new ceiling fan made the room look a ton better almost immediately. And at the end of that project, we didn't even have any extra parts! We ended up with this ceiling fan which coincidentally is the exact same fan that Rachel chose for her house. I liked the look of it, but it came with a remote, which was a must. You might be able to see that the light switch for this is behind the french doors that we plan on keeping open most of the time. What a pain in the butt! Clearly I'm special though, because I had no idea that you could buy the remote feature separate from the fan, meaning my options were far greater than I originally realized. Oops. That's okay, because I still like the look of the fan anyway.

Oh, and the box/fan is really durable, because we put it too far back in the Sorento when loading it, and when we opened the door after arriving home, it promptly fell out of the car, bounced off of the hitch ball and landed on the ground. Not a single part was hurt. Yet again, I digress.

Rachel patched up a few nail holes from miscellaneous spots on the wall, including some masking tape that I believe has been on the wall for longer than I've been alive. I continued sanding away, but by this point, I had graduated into the dining room. Yes!

Once Rachel finished cutting the room, she began the "Introduction to Rolling Paint" course for me. This course involved her painting almost 2 entire walls before she trusted me with a small spot to try on my own. Then I passed the torch....err roller to Jason to try, which he then promptly used to smack the ceiling. A later story will tell you that that mark will probably stay on the ceiling for many years to come.

Finally, one part of the project was done! We had a wall color! And it wasn't pink! It scared us a little bit, because it looked a little weird with the old wood trim color, but we had faith that once the trim was painted, it would look a ton better. Now, I had finished sanding all of the trim in both rooms. I was so excited and thought that I was going to actually hold a paint brush and PAINT something! Nope. Rachel then handed me the spray bottle of something-or-other and a roll of paper towels and told me now to go over all of the trim that I sanded and wipe it off. Are you kidding me? That's not painting! I obeyed and continued on my hands and knees wiping down everything that I had sanded away. That took us to the end of day one, and I had held a paint roller in my hand for maybe 15 minutes. Clearly, this project is not at all what I had expected and is taking a lot longer than I hoped. The experienced ones in the room were happy with our current progress. Stupid optimists!

The next day we were able to continue working on the room. My dad began installing the light fixture in the dining room while Rachel began working on some of the trim in the living room. (I have NO recollection of what I was doing during all of this. Maybe more wiping?) Finally, I was handed a paint brush! I was given the go-ahead to paint something. I was overwhelmed with excitement as I eagerly painted the trim. I got some on the walls, but didn't care, because I was painting! I even got some on the carpet! I was a little surprised that Rachel didn't yell at me and instead told me to spray the stain with her magic spray bottle and dab it up. Amazingly, the paint came right out of the carpet. We stayed up all night to finish the room, but it was worth it when it was done! Note to self: one color that should NOT be done after dusk - Brown. It was nearly impossible to see what was painted and what was a shadow.

At this point, we were able to move the air mattress to the living room and start sleeping there instead of the basement. It is a much nicer room to sleep in, despite the exposure to a very large uncovered window next to us. We're still debating what to do or not to do with the fireplace. I think we can make a better decision once our living room furniture is in place. But that's a loooooong time for now. I had no idea that this room was going to be by far the fastest room that we would complete in the house, and that it would take many more weeks to get other rooms done.