After surviving the chaos of Christmas with kids, I'm back in the game. I blitz installed the last of the standard interior doors this morning, so all that's left on that project is a bi-fold closet door and the heavy-duty garage access door. More on that another time; there's bigger fish to fry here.

With larger (Kitchen) projects financially out of reach we're going to attack the living room,... front room?... parlor?  It really needs an update. It's Sweetie's  "One Nice Room", through which visitors enter the castle. 

No eating, drinking or toys allowed!

It's where the breakables  are kept. It also doubles as a temporary guest room for out of town visitors. It needs flooring, a TV stand, paint, a touch of ceiling repair, and a touch of TLC. we've been discussing attacking it for quite some time.

I crouched, working at the front door for a bit yesterday, as I installed the new entry closet door. Really, truly, it's time for a remodel;it's past time. The carpet's gotten ridiculously embarrassing.

We'd gotten the cheapest grade installed, following a house flood from a broken toilet feed seven years ago . I'm surprised it "lasted" this long. This stained and rumpled God-awful mess that welcomes visitors to our home is older than our daughter.

We spent time yesterday scouting stores, researching, and financially planning our assault. This morning, we secured some of the material, starting with a shelving system and wood flooring. Although we won't need the shelving for a couple weeks, we found that one of the components was nearly sold out at IKEA, so we braved the vast warehouse in search of the Lost Ark of the Covenant. 

"I assure you, Dr. Brody, Dr. Jones. We have top men working on it right now"

- Major Eaton

The excursion resulted in two hernia inducing truckloads to load and unload and a slice of IKEA's authentic Swedish Pizza. Modern Photography just can't do justice to the amount of soul crushing weight loading this stuff from the shelf onto a cart, into the truck, on to a hand-truck, then into the house is. I also took a trip to the flooring store. 

We finished the day by dabbing some paint on the wall to see how it might look.

The beautiful Barrister's Bookcase just doesn't fit with the plan for the room. We'll look at putting it elsewhere in the house, but it's probably destined for Craigslist. We can probably build up some funds towards new furniture by selling it, the glider rocker, and the TV stand. I'm going to open up the wall a little bit to wire the TV so maybe I'll find some hidden pirate treasure there too.

The paint really looks worse in real life. Not a straight edge cut in the room. At least the bookcase breaks down into manageable bite size pieces. (Maybe THIS can go in a Honda Fit!)

I peeled back the carpet to find the pad was glued. Well then, it's gonna' be lovely hands-and-knees scraper work for the AZ DIY Guy eh?

Bring it!

That's why the good Lord created knee pads.

That's it for the day. The flooring needs 72 hours to acclimatize. More demo and paint is on tap for tomorrow. Let's rock!

Got any good ideas on this one?

Welcome aboard the new project train! Check out the next episode: