The Small House

Here it is:

We have so many things we want to do with this little cutie.

A few hours after closing the deal, we emptied it of leftover "decor" - like a poster print of a daisy, a humongous and very heavy shelf, fake flowers, window valances and a clock or two. We also moved out a few monster storage things in the basement.

Then we got to work on the floors. Lots of past it's prime carpet (two layers in one room) and some laminate flooring were hiding the original hardwood floors.

Kitchen floor into the living room. At least they were clean.

I think the padding was red, not the carpet. Oh, that would have been bad.

Liam working hard. That is his room in front of him. That is the laminate floor that Hero pulled out.

The hallway. Colin's room to the left with that snazzy blue carpet. Our room at the end behind him.

From the bathroom, down the hallway. That is blue tile in the bathroom. There is a lot of blue in the bathroom.

Hero taking a break. Or maybe getting those boys to work harder. (Probably not - They worked so hard!)

Inside that box is the collection of staples and nails.

Our room. This carpet was actually cleaned recently. Ugh.

From the living room, looking into the hallway. 

Hero had to scrape up some vinyl flooring in front of the door. What a mess that was.

 Making progress.

Colin's blue closet door. So many treasures here!

The living room.

After pulling out two thousand nails and staples, the floors were ready for the next step:

Sanding.
And then more sanding.
And then finish sanding.
And then cleaning.
And then not staining them.
And then sealing them.
And then waiting for them to cure. (Really, the hardest part!)

Sanding. I think we took off about an inch.

See those marks below? It says "Murphy" in reverse. We found this in the hallway under the pad and carpet. We think when Hero's parents had the house carpeted back in the sixties, their name was written on the pad, and it transferred to the floor. How cool is that?

We had suggestions to keep the "Murphy", but really, that was not going to work. See it right by Hero's left foot? Yeah, that had to be sanded, too.

Here is the end result. Lovely! (Still need to get the quarter round moldings, but we are so happy!)

While we were waiting for the floors to be strong enough to handle traffic and furniture, I painted the insides of all the closets - All five of them.

After becoming so intimate with them while doing the floors, I realized that I had a golden opportunity to knock those out without having to empty them, since they were already empty. Never mind that I was pretty whipped after staying up late to work on floors and getting up early to work. But I am so happy I took advantage of the moment! They looked a million times better - And ready for the Murphys!

After that marathon week, we were ready to rest, but there was no time for that. We moved all we owned in the world to our new address the next day (the day we became hoarder look-alikes).

But the next day...

was Sunday - The day to rest.