Come Sit At Our Table

I never thought that napkins, place mats and napkin holders could be so exciting!

I was actually too embarassed to show a "before" picture... there were probably 15 books stacked one on top of the other, a month's worth of spam snail-mail, and some of Russell's t-shirts all just sitting on top of our table. It was so upsetting to me that it actually made me cry. I just kept cleaning and cleaning and cleaning it, and somehow within a week or two it would become a heaping pile of mess all over again.

After cleaning it off himself, Russell came up with the brilliant idea to permanently set the table, which would physically prevent anyone from just tossing their junk on top of it.

We both had different ideas and visions for what we wanted, but (just like everything else in marriage) we compromised .

Russell was looking for more of an Oriental and elegant setting, I wanted my usual tribal/Hawaiian/bohemian look. He had already bought me the dishes, bowls and cups as a Christmas gift, so we just needed to match the accessories to them. I think we came to a nice compromise.

I'm sooooo happy that we won't have to clear off that table again... and even happier that I won't be embarassed every time we have guests!

Wow, how vinyltastic.

Finally... finally, finally, finally!

I absolutely *hate* the carpet in our house. It is DISGUSTING. We got the house on foreclosure, so when we moved in the lawn looked terrible and there were some definite areas for improvement. The house had recently been remodeled, so it wasn't too bad, but one of the things that has always bothered me is the God-awful carpet. Our dogs have not helped the situation. They have had their share of accidents while we are at work, which makes it virtually impossible to get *all* the pee out of the rug because it gets to sit there for 8 to 10 hours :(. Even with a deep cleaning by a professional carpet cleaning company every 3 to 6 months, it still looks gross.
A few weeks ago, Russell told me that his boss was going to give him a few rolls of free vinyl "wood" flooring so we decided to redo our hallway. He took care of it all in 2 days and now it looks GREAT! I love having a handy husband. All that's left now is the living room and then we're done with the whole house! We decided to hold off on taking the carpet out of the "baby room" (which is really a glorified guest bedroom) until the "baby" gets old enough to not *somehow* fall on their head... does that sound horrible? It probably does. But it's safer, so maybe it doesn't sound too bad on my part... I'm just thinking of the worst possible scenario and trying to properly prepare for it.
Here are some before and after pictures of our new hallway!

Before:

Here's a good view that will show you how Maya has chewed a huge chunk of the rug up... and you can also see how un-white it looks... yuck.

This is what it looked like after Russell tore the carpet out and laid the first two coats of um... whatever that stuff is that you put *under* the flooring :P

And finally, the finished product...
Tada!


I'm so relieved, I can't wait to get the living room done!