Wheee! The entry is not finished, but it feels so much better! And we have hardwoods we can see in the bedroom!

The entry was white, with granny curtains, and the bedroom carpet was faded ugly rust colored. But not anymore! We won't be refinishing the floor till the rest are uncovered. The floor in Amelia's room was already exposed, and I've looked at most of them. My craft room has white paint slopped all over the hardwood floor under the carpet because they apparently didn't give a crap when they painted, knowing they were putting in carpet. Not surprising considering the overall condition of everything. Under the carpet in the entry/hall area upstairs and in the dining room the wood looks like it's never been walked on, it looks completely unworn, it is BEAUTIFUL, (then again, so is the worn stuff in the bedroom) but it has some ancient adhesive stuck to it that needs to be removed. And the stairs have 2 layers of ugly brown paint on the top of the steps that has to go.

I'm pretty much ripping the carpet out in sections with a box cutter, rolling it up, and putting it in the basement, then it leaves on trash day. I did the bedroom in a couple hours, but it didn't have the strips of tacks or padding like the rest of the house, so it was faster/easier. The rest is slower to remove, since I'm scraping away at the old adhesive before moving to another section. It's slooooow, but feels rewarding. For now... (the adhesive is under the padding and has NOTHING to do with the current carpet, but I found a piece of ooooold black looking carpet stuck in it. Did old carpet have adhesive?! We just got the internet today, so I'm going to research what it is in a few minutes, but it's OLD, whatever it is.)

The cable got hooked up today, the TV has to be plugged into one of the only 2 grounded outlets in the kitchen, and so do our laptops when charging. But we FINALLY got an electrician to come by and look around. Till today they don't call back or don't want to do the job. He pronounced our house a firetrap. I am quite sure he's right, or why call him in? We need the knob and tube (house-wide) cut off. New wiring throughout, overhead lights in rooms that have none... He quoted us $12,000. Basement, attic, top to bottom, everything. (And he advised me not to get a disposall because nothing should go in the drain, but we compost and have a strainer and things STILL go in the drain sometimes, so why can't I chop it up?!?) There's a lot of creepy wiring that isn't up to code. And things are wired into the knob and tube improperly, and it's insulated around... Basically the house is priced like it is because of the electrical work needed. Joe is talking to the bank to see if a piggyback loan is possible, or else he's spending his day off tomorrow talking to banks about a loan. It will cover the porch too hopefully, which would be awesome.

We did lead tests and almost all of the paint that's chipping badly is the top 2 layers that are NOT lead, and the lead underneath is firmly stuck and not chipping! All good news for prepping the walls and trim for new paint. BUT of course the worst spot that has lead is in Amelia's room, her windowsills reacted with a crazy bright pink lead test, The top layer is apparently still lead, and if you pick at it, it chips. Tomorrow I'm getting to work on it while Joe's off work. I hope the chipping part isn't bad, maybe just the lower part... Regardless, I want her to have lead free windowsills and build a window seat, not put up a baby fence around it forever! For now, she just doesn't realy play up there, she's with us downstairs and barely old enough to really realize she HAS a room. Luckily, I guess, if she was a bit older a determined 2 year old shut out of her room would be a hand-full!

Entry Before-


Entry Now-


Entry Before-


Entry After-


After-


Entry Floor-


Functional (unfortunately) K&T Firetrap Push Button Lightswitch-


Ugly Bedroom Carpet, much uglier than you can tell in this picture!


Bedroom Floor Now!






Bedroom Door frame where the door fell off on me in the middle of the night-


Ancient Adhesive in the landing/hallway at the top of the stairs, outside our bedroom-


Awesome drywall job in the bathroom. The ONLY bathroom- (try telling a toddler not to splash the drywall touching the tub when they play in the tub... Can't wait to rip this out!)


Can we say firetrap? This is in the bathroom-


I can't wait till the wiring is done. It makes me nervous.

The less orange entry pictures are more accurate, it was sunset and not really light enough for my camera. Tomorrow I'll try for daylight pictures when it will focus better, and maybe take some pics of our firetrap wiring...