Ah-Ah-Ah-

CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

I did not know that it was possible to have this much allergy sinus pressure. But, I'm not sure what I expected, now that we've uncovered all the hidden allergens in our house. All day Saturday, Sydney had a regional choir rehearsal for her concert that night. Her teacher picked her up that morning and after that, Rob and I were on our own. We started the day at Lowe's, signing the contracts for the carpet. We picked a color. We picked a maker. We were in great agreement with a minimum of unhelpful discussion and a maximum of listening to what the other had to say. Should take a week to come in and then we schedule with an installer and hope to have it all finished and be settled back in the house in two weeks (remember The Money Pit with Tom Hanks? Everything was going to take "two weeks". I hope our two weeks is more realistic).

Anyway, after trips to two hardware stores, we came home with gallons of paint and a desire to get started. So, we pulled the carpet out of the dining room and exposed the floor...or more accurately, the quarter of an inch of dirt and disintegrated carpet pad that was on the floor. Fortunately, all the steam cleaning we had done had turned most of this into mud, which had dried on the floor and we scraped it with a paint scraper and swept it up pretty easy. Then, we swept again and vacuumed and I got on my hands and knees and scrubbed with a brush and I mopped three times and THEN it was clean enough for us to live on for a couple of weeks. I knew what to expect and I knew to plan to buckle down and get'er done.



The tile in there is the original Armstrong Solarian put down in 1978 and from what we can tell, the first time it was covered with carpet was just before I bought the house.

The white around the edges is paint overspray. When I bought the house, it had been rental property and they had come in and sprayed the whole interior flat white. Ceilings, walls, baseboards, trim, light switches and cover plates and plugs and curtain rods and miniblind hardware and supposed to be brown window frames. Everything. Flat white.

Quilters anathema!

On Sunday, we rolled back the carpet in half of the living room, cut it away from the baseboards, pulled out the pad, swept and vaccumed and mopped the slab and rolled the carpet back out like a rug and then rolled up the other half and did the same thing. While Sydney and I were cleaning, Rob was painting baseboards and trim. Then, I wanted to paint and they started cleaning.

Syd was a real trooper through most of this. She and I started the day stretching together and then we got down to work. I'd start a chore and then hand it off to her, so that gave her an greater and greater challenges through the day to keep her interested. Seems she always wants to be doing what I'm doing instead of what she's doing, so I'd start something boring, pass it off to her and move to something I though was more exciting. It was very Tom Sawyer like in its manipulation.

Here's another shot of our combined slab and carpet living situation. Bits and pieces here and there. Sydney and I both noticed the difference in how cold the house was last night. just having that little bit of uncovered slab made a huge difference. And, without the pad, I keep feeling like I'm falling out of rooms that still have the carpet and pad in them.

Next weekend, we tackle the master bedroom, including painting all the closets. I had to appreciation for doing an exceptionally good job until recently. Not sure what's come over me. When I was a kid, I can remember calling it "doing it the F. W. way" after my grandfather and he always did a good and thorough job. No half assing anything. Which meant everything was a lot of work. And, that's the way my Dad did it, too, so it was also called "the B. W. way". We said that in a not-such-a-nice-meaning way when I was a kid. Because we didn't want to do all the work that they thought was involved in a good job. No appreciation for it. Just slap some paint on the wall and fah-gedd-aboud it. Who's gonna notice. Now that I'm almost 50, I finally have an appreciation for how it ought to be done. And, I'm the one advocating all the extra work. Fortunately, I can carry my half of the load now, too, so Rob isn't having to do it all alone. But, I can remember when he and I redid the kitchen and the master bath a few years ago and hurling out at him one of those meanly intended "you're making all this as much work as my Dad used to". Now, I get to eat those words.

And, while we were doing all that, we welcomed this beauty into our home. What a beauty. I just barely had time to get started cleaning her up. But, she works smooth and almost silent and does a variety of things. I can't wait to get to know her better.

I think her first job is going to be helping me put the dining room curtains back together. They've never been the right size. Two panels and too narrow and two panels are too wide, so we're going to have a three bears moment and make all four panels just right.

Everybody have a great Monday. As you can imagine, I didn't get much quilting done. The story time stars quilt has all the ditch work done. Now, I need to make a play sandwich and practice what I'm going to quilt in those stars.

Lane