Laminate wood flooring in living room

 continued project with laminate wood flooring in living room

 I chose oak, as much as I would have loved to get the walnut like I had at the old house, this home has lovely old solid oak flooring down the front hallway and 2 bedrooms, and the stairs to upper bedrooms, so I stuck with oak to match, and it really does match pretty darn close 

My apologies for not taking photos during the process, it was a job I wanted done rather quickly the next day so I totally forgot to have my daughter snap photos as it was being laid down!

so there ya have it, the new flooring goes all the way over to the front door and ties into the hallway perfectly, do I love it? oh yes I certainly do, and the kids do as well, they have been sliding around all day in their sock feet!

as you can see, the baseboard trim is not back up yet, it's still down in the basement out of the way, and you can see I stopped at the entryway into the kitchen area where I just redid that flooring with those laminated 12x12 inch square peel and stick tiles, when we rebuild kitchen cabinets, this flooring will also go in there.

We only just started bringing the furniture back into the room enough that we can have seating LOL

I need to get the double bookcase shelves put back in place too, the bookcase was built by my gorgeous husband :) I love it!!

and do you remember that old ugly wing back chair? Well there is the covering I ordered for it, doesn't it look like a whole new chair, for around $35 I got the chair and ottoman coverings!!! woot woot happy camper I am, and yes the covering fits the chair perfectly, it just needs pulled and tucked in properly, ok well I will try to remember to take better photos next time when I am working on a project for you all.

Until next time . . .

Box turtle out of hibernation!

Well I have to say this, my box turtles knew we had an early spring, today is March 22, 2010 and this is the earliest I have seen them come up, just hope it's not going to turn nasty again and snow because Bucky is up and wanting some food! I found him when I went out to see if any daffodils or tulips were sprouting up yet.

See he is still covered with mud, ready for a soak in his bath

I better get digging for some worms for him, don't see any sign of the others just yet, he's the only one who ventured out this early in the year

being the little piggie that he is, I know why he is awake, he wanted first dibs on the food!

Just see how he looks at me, like . . . more please, that one snuck off before I could finish it LOL

Beaver prank on the farmer

I have to tell you we have awesome neighbors, on both sides of this property, one side is the farmer and the other side is another retired couple, fun folks both sides of us, couldn't have asked for better neighbors truly!

So the farmer is the ornery one, always pulling some prank or another, he lives for it I swear!

He knows everyone for miles around and has lived here his entire 70 some years.

his wife just rolls her eyes and just says "now John!"

yeah she is used to his ways, they have been married like 47 years, she once told me if she didn't know any better, she would have thought he had hand picked us to move in here just to liven up the valley

now about that beaver . . .

One day we were on our way home from Dundee while visiting some family, at a stop sign we see this HUGE and man do I mean HUGE BEAVER, I stop, its dead, thank God, it would have chewed our leg off if it wasn't, hmmmm our minds went to work pretty quick, I said we should get John back with this baby, can we get it into the explorer? kids in back seat just shaking their heads,  so he actually got it lifted BARELY into my explorer and down the road we go, chuckling the whole way!!

 WE got US a prize this time, now what to do with it?

yep it was a monster, it was also very late at night and very dark so the photo isn't the best

I said we needed to sit it on his Gator's seat, he doesn't walk anywhere, he rides that gator everywhere and if we sat it in his seat that would be the first thing he finds in the morning, heh heh heh, so we drag that sucker over there in the middle of the night to put on his seat

see, told you it was HUGE, hubby can hardly keep it held up there for the photo

so we go sneaking off in the night to the farmers, dragging a huge dead beaver down the road in the dark

we get there and get it propped up in the driver seat and its face/head area just lands right on the steering wheel, so it looks like it's driving,  well we are *snickering and snorthing* the whole entire time

I really am surprised we didn't wake anyone up!

we barely make it back home from all the laughter and can hardly contain ourselves, we did it, just wait till he comes out in the morning, I said, you watch, it'll be his wife that finds it, no hubby says, she never leaves before him, oh yeah right!!!

She needed to go somewhere the next morning, John was gonna move the gator because it's parked outside the garage door, meaning, he had to move it or she would back out of the garage and back right over his gator, she told him not to worry she could handle it . . .

yeah well . . next thing she comes back in the house and says to John, you better go move it, there's something dead in it, he just looked at her and went outside.

LOL OMG I am dying here with the memory, tears running down my face, I can ONLY IMAGINE what the heck she was thinking, thinking one of his pranks got a prank back on him, problem was he had pranked so many people down the valley, he had no clue who got him, never imagined it was us.

Next day with a straight face hubby comes back from the farmers and says, he told me all about a beaver greeting Cora when she went to move the gator, I about died, shit, she WAS the one to find it, so a few days went by, John still has no clue, can't figure out who put it there cuz nobody was making any hints about it and they thought it was hilarious, he told everyone, trying to figure it out, finally we had our daughter make a sign to go stick on the end of his driveway, it said "Thanks for babysitting my beaver"

he still didn't figure it out, another day or two passed, and the next thing, we find the sign on our back porch

and the beaver on our mailbox (mind you this is nearly a week later)

damn, he figured it out, how the hell did he figure it out!!??

well come to find out, our dear brother in law seen it and laughed and said looks like the one Robert found

well, yup, John knew immediately he had us, dead to rights

John also knew he had met his match, he was no longer king of the valley for pranks

heh heh heh

don't you wish YOU lived here?!

New flooring in living room FINALLY

March 2010 ~ 7 months, yes it's been 7 months since we moved in, I know you remember the old original 1965 carpeting in the living room, well . . . as promised, I have found laminate flooring and purchased enough for the living room, dining room and kitchen! HA so there, now it's time to rip out the old carpet and get busy!

to recap the old carpeting . . .

not too shabby for carpet that is 45 years old, but way way out of league for what I wanted to see in my new living room, so lets get started why don't we

I started by using a razor knife and slicing it into sections, making it much easier to roll up and discard

this took awhile, not so much the getting the carpet out, but the worst part was pulling out all the carpet tacks and old staples and nails, my knees were killing me by the time I was done!

yup, that's me, probably complaining about yet another jab in the knee! but almost done!!

piles of old krap to roll up and get outside

finally, all the carpet is out, now we are pulling staples and nails

while we were pulling staples and nails, I put my son to work breaking up that red slate in front of the entry way, I wanted to continue the flooring all the way over to the front door

This took us a whole day to get prepped for the laying of the laminate wood flooring, tomorrow it's hard at work getting it down in one day!

Until then . . .