these may not be the most exhilarating images for all y'all out there, but for us these represent a big sigh of relief.

here it is: we finished putting up all of the baseboards, all of the window trim, curtains and my nifty smarty pants favorite german manufactured some tricky trim that is so perfect and beautiful that you wouldn't even notice it if your nose was flat up against the wall. and may i just say that in the land of tricky trim, invisibility is a major accomplishment.

we took advantage of a semi-dry backyard on saturday and while i patched, primed and painted yards of our salvaged trim from the days of the porno-room wood panelling, C kept the table saw purring with his stack of wood.
as fellow old-home dwellers will surely understand, nothing in the cabinhouse is plumb or square or level and nearly everything needs modification. door trim needs to be cut out and chiseled to fit the crooked jambs, walls bend in or out and closet doors close on wet days and won't stay shut on warm ones...C has become a master of coaxing these frustrating issues into happy submission.
we're still figuring out some lighting issues, touch-ups galore need to be addressed, the kitchen has become a rainy-day month staging ground and our stock of caulk is slowly dwindling but we're not looking half bad!
oh, and look at that orange tree! best oranges in the world...

it took us nearly 2 years to decide what floor we wanted/could afford in our bedroom.
here's how the debate played out:

me: i hate carpet. carpet sucks. i will never have carpet in our bedroom. never.
him: some carpet can be nice. wool carpet can be nice.
me: nope. no way. i hate it.

we looked at refinishing the old cork floors that were there already: not worth it.
new cork floors: too $$ and not as nice as we had hoped. oh, and they seem to fade quite a bit over time.
fake hardwood: we both agreed this sucks beyond belief. worse than almost anything.
real hardwood: could never come close to being half as gorgeous as our newly refinished old old wood floors
linoleum: eh, not so much in the bedroom

which explains the 1.5 year interlude and why our bedroom was the last room with no baseboards, door or window trim and random paint footprints still left on the wall.

and then we saw nice carpet at a friend's house, it convinced me and we bought some here. simple as that. sort of.

the installation:
1. emptied room and jammed all of our furniture in to the tiny living room
2. cleaned floors, rafters, ceiling (lofted ceiling is really pretty but a major pain to clean). oh, and we did NOT remove the cork flooring. did it once, done with that. no way we were going back there...
3. hammered in strips of floor tacks. wear gloves.
4. put down padding. totally worth it...huge difference. good we listened to our floor expert on this tip. we used our favorite tool to tack it in place. 5. used the carpet stretcher to get the carpet nice and tight. possibly the worst designed tool ever. just plain dumb. the jammer is not so bad...still need some more door molding and window trim. finished pictures to come....

oh, and i love the carpet.

back in action....
valentine's day carpet love ahead...
bedroom makeover part II (or 300...)