We’re kicking off 2016 with a couple of small projects and one not so small, not so big project.
Project #1: Caulk Windows
A few months ago, we noticed that the caulk around our windows was cracked in a lot of places so we made a mental note to eventually re-caulk. Well, last weekend I was sitting around and felt a pretty substantial breeze coming through the closed window I was next to so we bumped caulking to the top of our priority list. Kyle started on this Wednesday night and we’ll probably do one or two windows a day until it’s done.
Project #2: Clean Garage
We did a pretty good job of cleaning our garage last January but it didn’t stick. We really need to get it cleaned so that we can keep at least one car parked in here and have the other side to do projects. Right now we have room for one car and the other side is just crap thrown everywhere. The plan is to tackle this on Saturday. I had hoped Kyle could take care of this while I played with our new leaf blower but it’s supposed to rain Saturday. Womp, womp.
Project #3: Living Room
If you paid attention to my post about our 2016 goals you may be a little confused. If you didn’t pay attention or didn’t read it at all you may be confused as to why those who did pay attention would be confused. Well, that would be because the living room wasn’t anywhere on our list of 2016 goals; we had absolutely no plans for the living room this year other than cleaning the carpet.
So why are we already altering our 2016 plan just a week in? Because our dogs suck. I love our dogs but sometimes they suck. There have been many bathroom accidents and other stuff I won’t get into on that carpet but I was just going to suck it up and deal with it because we’re hoping to put in new floors downstairs in 2017. We figured we would get them cleaned and deal with it until we could afford to replace everything so at least they wouldn’t look disgusting. But then I came home from work to find multiple puddles of dog pee and a nice big pile of dog poop, part of which did not want to release itself from the carpet.
And that was that. I snapped and decided I can’t deal with it anymore so we decided that we’re going to rip up the carpet and put in laminate flooring. It’s not my dream flooring but honestly, it’s not going to cost much more than having the carpet cleaned and now if the dogs have an accident it’ll be much easier to clean up. Plus we’re not sure if we’re going to be able to replace all the flooring next year anyway so this may end up holding us over until we can.
Of course since we’re ripping the carpet out we figure we’ll go ahead and take advantage of having no floors and use the opportunity to paint the ceiling, stain the beams, and do something (paint? whitewash?) with the wood paneling.
Even though this wasn’t in our original plan, I’m pretty excited about it! It’s the room where we spend most of our time so it will be nice to have it looking a little more done. Of course there will still be other things to do down the road (new windows, reface fireplace, add lighting, etc) but I think the small changes we’re making now are going to make a big impact.
Here’s what the room looked like when we moved in.
From the entry way into the living room:
From the room we call the study:
Here’s what it looks like now. Spoiler Alert: not much has changed. In fact, it looks a little worse now, I think.
I told Kyle we could get the garage done first but as soon as we’re finished with that you better believe I’ll be tearing up that nasty carpet.
I have always liked that house.! I get removing the carpet from downstairs..we did ourselves a few years ago. Hardwoods expect in the den and upstairs with is bedrooms. When one has multiple dogs ya do what ya have to!