Hi friends! I did make it back from Australia alive, by the way. But literally almost as soon as we arrived home we went over to our new place, and ever since then we’ve been overwhelmed with moving-related activities. Basically we have a ton of stuff to get done, and it’s complicated by the fact that Steven has to be out of town for a lot of this month. We have to move and make our home hospitable for friends who are visiting in three weeks, and it’s a lot to do, especially if you throw some jet lag into the mix.

Anyway, I’m not complaining (I’m super grateful for all of the things that’ve been happening in my life recently!), but I just wanted to explain my scarcity lately.

So, want to see a tiny bit of what I’ve been up to? One of the things that we love about our house is that it has hardly any carpet, and lots of gorgeous wood floors. The few exceptions are:

1. The basement stairs (but only a third of them, for some reason)
2. The front deck (who puts carpet outdoors, especially in a climate this rainy and damp??)
3. The master bedroom walk-in closet

Eventually we’ll remove all of the carpet, but for now I’m prioritizing. I can ignore the basement stairs, and the front deck is next on the list, but the bedroom closet carpet was/is so disgusting that there is no way I was going to sleep in the same room with it.

Just to back up a little, the upstairs floor of our house consists of a landing area, and a bedroom with an attached bathroom and French doors leading to a tiny room with a big closet on each side. We’re not sure, but at some point it probably was an open porch that was enclosed.

It will make an awesome closet, but first, the carpet has to go. I almost hesitate to show you how gross it is, but I feel in the interest of full disclosure, I must.
Ewww, right? (Yeah, those neon blue walls desperately need repainting, too). One step at a time, though.

So yesterday I took a pair of gloves and a hammer and started yanking it up. Since it’s in multiple pieces and really old, it came off pretty easily.

Now I’m no carpet expert, but I’m pretty sure that hammering dozens of nails in random sizes all over is not the proper way to attach a carpet to a floor. Just guessing here. But that is just what somebody did, who knows how many years ago. So I’ve been tearing up the carpet, pulling up the nails, and then moving on to the next area. It’s pretty slow going, and I’m not done yet.

When I finish, the plan is to fill in the many, many nail holes. The floor is already painted inside the closets, right up to where the carpet randomly ended where they ran out, which is in different places on each side. But we plan to give the whole thing a unifying coat of white wood floor/deck paint. Here’s some painted wood floor inspiration I’ve been eyeing:

Can’t find the sources for these.

So obviously I’ve got my work cut out for me, but I’m looking forward to sharing the finished results!