The home improvement project that never ends

A couple of weeks ago, we pulled the carpet up in our living room and hall, to install bamboo flooring. Well, the flooring has been installed, but the home improvement project has evolved. We thought about putting in some crown molding, and decided that now was as good a time as any, then we decided that while we had the base boards off, we may as well paint.

Here's where we are now: Floors have been installed (thanks to Joe, Aaron, and the flooring master Jimbo), walls painted (thanks Jared and Wendy for babysitting), new coat of paint on the base boards (thanks Jared and Amilyn), and furniture put back into the livingroom (it was rearranged, a new peice of furniture added, then rearranged about 5 more times, thanks Jared for helping us move them and adjusting our backs afterwards) Joel's brother Jared came into town on Wednesday of last week and stayed with us until yesterday morning. We put him right to work; I'll bet he had no idea what he was getting into. He was such a good sport about it, too.

Here's what we have left: Put the baseboards back up; install paint, and caulk the crown molding; install the flooring doorway transition strips (the flooring store didn't have them in stock so we had to wait on those to come in the mail); and give the flooring a good cleaning (we have been scraping and removing glue for days, Joel decided that I was good at it, so I should take over that job, convenient. I guess I can't complain though, I've dodged a lot of other work with the pregnancy).

Some demo. pictures:

The livingroom furniture was all crammed into the kitchen and diningroom for days. That first picture is a shot from the kitchen, looking into the diningroom.

We all agreed that the carpet padding looked like the jello that Sis. Hebert from Plaquemine Branch always brought to the pot-lucks. We also all agreed that though she went a little crazy with the ingredients, we all secretly liked it.

Joel and I were not going out to rob a bank, (even though we could use a little extra cash after this project that kept growing and growing) we were just trying not to fill our lungs with the dust from the carpet and padding. I could not believe how much dust and dirt there was in and under the carpet. Even with my dish towel mask (we forgot to buy some at the store so we had to improv) I still had a sore throat for a couple of days.

Some install pictures:

The guys just getting started (left to right: the back sides of Joel, Joe, and Jimbo)

As soon as we get that last few things done, I'll post some pictures of the finished product. Hopefully that will all be done soon!

P.S. Keep scrolling down the page, I put up two posts at the same time, so there is another new one right below this one, and the next one has Kailey picture (I know that she is the real reason that some people look at my blog, it's ok mama, I love you anyway).