Pics from today

 You can't really see it, but here I've started painting the baseboards.  It's amazing how a little paint can make such a huge difference.  

OFF.SCHEDULE.

I really wanted to be much further along with this renovation that I am.  Today is my last day off work until Thursday and I'm still not done with painting the walls.  I had hoped to have the trim completed today!  Honestly, I have no one to blame but myself.  I got up early yesterday but then piddled around the house for a while before I headed to Home Depot to buy the paint.  Of course, I also piddled around Home Depot, got my oil changed, made a quick stop at Chick fil A... blah, blah, blah!

The foyer and the hallway are completely finished.  The paint looks much grayer than I had expected but it's still nice and much lighter than the previous color.  I'll include some pictures later today.

I have to go back to work tomorrow so today I attempted to cram in as much as possible .

When I first moved in, I painted the living room and the hallway.  Back then, I wasn't nearly as OCD about my painting.  I have these all over the house.

I ended up painting the ceiling in the hallway as well as the door to the attic.  While I was up on the ladder, I noticed this:

GROOOOOOOSSSSS!  Yes, I did change the air filter!

And then.... I decided I should just paint the walls in the living room and hallway, THEN the trim.  The painting will have to wait for the weekend.

If you look closely, you can see the two colors I was pondering.  I'm going with the one on the left.  It's called Cityscape by Martha Stewart.  Just one problem.  I HATE HATE HATE Martha Stewart paint.  I used it in my bathroom and had so many problems with it.  I had Home Depot mix the color in a Behr Premium paint and it worked perfect when I used it to paint one of my bedrooms.

And off the subject, my African Violet is blooming!  I've had it since college and it's always been so low maintenance.  I think the flowers look so pretty so I thought I would share some photos.

Let's Review

I bought my house in January 2006.  It's a cookie cutter cottage in Birmingham, Alabama.  My house is small but it's plenty enough for me.  When I moved in, I painted a few of the rooms while others stayed with the paint choices of the previous owners.  When my roommate, Julie, moved out in March, I received some sort of magical inspiration to renovate the bathroom she had been using.  Bless her soul, that place was UGLY.  Lots of brass, lineoleum, and bad lighting.  Here are the before and after photos.

Before

After

My latest inspiration... the floors.  The carpet is old and warn and REALLY needs to be replaced.  I have Pergo in the kitchen and ugly tile in the foyer.  I guess I've watched too much DIY Network or HGTV because I'm convinced I can lay hardwoods all on my own.  Right now the plan is to eventually replace the carpet in the bedrooms but everywhere else (save the bathrooms) will have hardwoods.

Over the last week or so, I have been in demolition mode.  I moved all of the furniture out of the living room and I have stashed it in various other rooms in my house.

yes, that's a couch in my bedroom

The tile is officially out of the foyer... even all the thinset I had to chisel away.

The carpet is out of the living room and down the hallway.

Tomorrow I plan to clean the floor well, fill the holes left from the carpet tacks, and hopefully, paint the moulding.  Once the living room is complete, I'll do this all again in the kitchen.  I didn't take apart the kitchen at this point since I'm trying to stay in the house while I make all these changes.  Also, I needed a place to stash all 27 boxes of hardwood.

I never noticed how cluttered the side of my fridge appears.  I'll work on that later!