Thanksgiving and more renovation progress

Fall 2011

It's been awhile, so I'm going to do a quick update with pictures of the last two months. Here we go!

 We went to Catoctin Mountain State Park in Frederick, MD

Rosie fell asleep on the way back with her chin resting on the armrest of the car door

 

 Daisy curled up in a ball to sleep on the ride home

We removed the wallpaper and primed the rec room (we'll tile it later, then pick our paint color)

rec room before

rec room after

Carlyle's parents came for a visit

Doggies got winter coats

The house got a little decorated

great room before

great room after

We finally put up some curtains

Before

living room

After

Rosie loves to watch from the front window

The front of the house got a mini-makeover --- we took down the screen door and painted the mailbox

The foyer space got a little more defined

We have a little bench for putting on shoes and socks... now I just need a mirror and some hooks above and we're all set!

 We got a new range and dishwasher and I LOVE them

Rosie watches kiddos walk home from school

 It SNOWED in OCTOBER - BEFORE the temperature ever dipped below freezing

The leaves are still on the trees, and the skylight, under the snow...

 View of the snow from the master bedroom

Our house in the snow

Notice I ripped out the {ugly} evergreen shrubs in the front that blocked the view of the window

before - notice the untrimmed shrubs, the brass mailbox, and the screen door

 Daisy's first snow with us (pretty sure she's making yellow snow here; sorry Daisy)

snuggling for warmth on the couch

Halloween 2011 - We South Carolinians love our Palmetto Tree flag just as much as all of the car decals, shirts, purses, flip-flops, jewelry, hats, etc convey. The carving handiwork was done by yours truly.

 He loves those dogs sooooo much!

 We're ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas now! Love you & Miss you!

Operation HtH: Carpet Removal from the staircase and a *sneak peak* of the color chosen for the great room

So the carpet on our stairs was kind of gross and we have planned on tearing it out ever since we bought it. I'll strip and refinish the stairs probably next summer - the idea is it'll be warm outside, warmer upstairs, and we'll have a guest bed downstairs to stay in until it's all complete.

The removal took me about an hour to do by myself and was pretty easy. There are still some small staples left I need to get out that are in the corner crevices.

Here are the before pics:

Ignore the basket of junk at the bottom of the stairs. That and the recycling bin combine to barricade the stairs from the dogs. 

 During photos:

first half ripped off, padding left

all of it off

look at all of that dirt - disgusting!

 After shots:

after cleaning them up some

the stair treads are in great shape - they're very shiny still; but we'll refinish them - there are a lot of spots with white paint like you can see on the outside of where the carpet was.

 Here's a sneak peak of the color we've picked for the great room. It's a gray - green shade by Martha Stewart called "Garden Shed." We've got tons of wallpaper to remove first, but after that we'll paint it. It took a lot of green swatches to find the perfect green that wasn't too yellow or minty to compliment the red wood and the blue and pink and gray stone.