I love it when this happens. Usually. Unless it’s pushing 2:30 or later in the afternoon. Today it was around 2:45.

We don’t usually wear shoes in the house even if they’re not dirty like these but the floors
are awfully dusty right now and we’re also safeguarding against errant nails.

I can’t remember what the issue was that brought this about. I was tired and it was noisy in the house - hammers, saws, the vacuum, banging boards into place, etc. B was feeling the commotion too and whatever the issue was, he got upset at me and pouted. He got on the couch as you can see, buried his face in his hands, and refused to acknowledge me for about five minutes. Which is when I heard him snoring lightly. Amidst all the noise. He fought me off when I tried to stir him to take him downstairs to bed, where it was quieter.

Tonight as I was putting him to bed I commented on his nap and he said, "I must have been super very tired because I didn’t hear any noise at all." Poor kid woke up with beads of sweat all over his face (his hair was wet too when I tried to wake him) and corduroy-like lines across his forehead, knees, and down his legs.

I am falling in love with the old hardwood floors that I’ve found under my linoleum and carpet. I knew there was some hardwood as it was under the carpet in the sewing room but it was in such bad shape that it wasn’t salvageable and it didn’t even cross my mind that there’d be hardwood elsewhere. As I sit here in my completely disassembled living room and look at the hardwood floor we’ve found in here, I’m sad. I am so wanting to believe that it could be salvaged relatively easily but it can’t. And I don’t have the money to do it. And I’ve already purchased the laminate and its installation has been started.

The rest of the carpet was pulled up last night and the roll moved to the other side of the room . Doing that turned up more wall footprints, making the previous living room even smaller than I had thought.

The remains of two doorways are evident in this photo, one straight ahead and one to the left of that. I’m not sure if this was a hallway or an actual room. Straight ahead in this photo, through the wall behind the chair, is the bathroom, however that is not its original location. 

It’s been running through my mind that if I took the laminate out of the sewing room to salvage as much of that hardwood as I could, I’d possibly have enough to fix the living room and very short hallway to the bathroom. The kitchen would have to be tiled or have some other floor treatment put down as there would not be enough wood to salvage that floor. It’s all dreams though; this old house isn’t worth the money it would take to do that. The value of the house would not increase enough, if at all, to make it a reasonable thing to do. Unfortunately. Nor do I want to live in a dust-laden house while all the sanding and refinishing is going on.

The selling price of this house jumped insanely in seven years and I paid double for it in 2007 what the sellers did in 2000 plus an additional $3000 (if I remember correctly) because of competition. I don’t plan to stay here for very many more years either. I’ve already re-done most of the basement, freshened up the outside, will probably be re-shingling before I move, expect to completely renovate (apart from the tub, toilet, and cabinet) the fully-tiled bathroom this fall, and will have put down new flooring throughout the entire house apart from the bathroom, laundry room, and back entrance, which are all tiled in ceramic. With the way the market is, I’m reaching the limit of how much money I can put into the house and still break even, if not turn a very slight profit. My intention in doing the repairs and renovations that I have done has never been about trying to get more for the house when I sell it (though wouldn’t that be nice?) but simply for aesthetics and my own enjoyment and personal taste.