Kim's Thoughts

I am so thrilled with the new floors and furniture that I recently had added to my home!!! Wall-To-Wall Flooring did an outstanding job of installing the Armstrong Grand Illusions laminate flooring. It looks beautiful…….I still have some work to do to put things back where they belong. Because of all that has been going on, I haven’t had time to devote to putting the stuff back on shelves and pictures up on the walls (furniture was repositioned, so the location of stuff on walls needed to be rearranged). Also, I wanted to wait until I had time to clean everything good before I put it back – the floor installation included sawing and sanding that flew dust all over everything. Now that things have calmed down, I can focus on this now and be done with it!!!

Here are a couple pics:

I am so very pleased!!! It turned out so much better than I could have imagined!!!!

My house is all tore up and it’s driving me nuts!!!! ha-ha I’m in process of doing some major renovations and I can’t wait until it’s all done!!!

When I bought this place three and a half years ago, I knew there were things I would want to change, but didn’t really know what I wanted to do. So – I moved in “as is” and decided to wait and see how things evolved……I also couldn’t afford to do what I wanted to do right after purchasing the house – I have to save up for projects and chunk it out to do it in phases. I won’t do any of the work on credit, so I get enough saved for a specific project and then wait until I get enough saved for the next project. So, it’s taking me time to get it all done. But, my goal is to have everything the way I want it within 5 years or less of when I purchased it. That means I have a year and a half left to finish – not sure if I’ll meet that goal or not, but I’m gonna give it a good shot!

Some things were given priority status out of necessity – fencing, gutters, and replacement of the linoleum on the kitchen floor with DuraCeramic tiles were all done the first year. I also did some landscaping and outside stuff the first year and some the second year – including a great new patio!

So – with the outside stuff done and a couple years of looking at the interior, I decided this was the year to tackle the inside renovations!!! In the mean time, Puddles started having geriatric doggie health problems and Megan and Amy were being puppies – so the carpet and furniture were in need of help (to put it nicely)! Knowing that I was going to focus on making changes anyway helped me get through all that! ha-ha Now that Puddles has passed (God rest my precious Princess’ sole) and the puppies are a year old, I think it’s safe to do what I want to do!!!!

Current decor — The carpet is the same beige throughout – it’s a really nice carpet, but not something I would have picked and kinda dull. The walls are white throughout every room! I always thought I loved white walls – so clean and bright – until I lived in a house that had white walls in every room in the house!!! The kitchen and bathrooms have white Formica counter tops and the bathroom floors have white linoleum. The kitchen appliances are all white. And I have mostly beige or wood furniture! So — boring, boring, boring — don’t get me wrong — very nice, clean, bright, and flexible – I have added my color with accents and accessories until I could decide what I wanted to do!

Situation as of this weekend — all the old living room furniture is gone and all my nick-knacks, TV, and other stuff is all over the kitchen table and counter tops!!! It looks like a plane hit the place!!! ha-ha

The plan — I thought I wanted to replace the carpeting with more carpeting, but my heart just wasn’t in it and the more I thought about it, the more I wanted wood flooring!!! So — I’m having Armstrong Grand Illusions Laminate flooring installed in the living room, foyer, and hallway – this is a new product that has a piano finish and some really beautiful wood graining – scratch and stain resistant and less maintenance than real wood flooring! I’m also replacing the linoleum in the guest bathroom with DuraCeramic tiles. They are going to do that sometime next week (we’re still working out the details). Then, the new furniture is being delivered the weekend after the flooring is done! For now, I’m going to leave the carpet “as is” in the bedrooms.

What’s next? — After the flooring and furniture are here and I see how it all looks, I will decide on paint colors for the walls throughout the house – I have a friend at work who’s husband has a painting business that comes highly recommended, so I’ll see what they can do and when. I want to warm up the rooms and know what basic colors I want. But I need to be careful of the shades so that I avoid making it dark, so I want to see what the flooring will do before I pick out final colors. Of course, window treatments will be part of that, as well.

Other future projects — I will probably leave the carpet “as is” in the guest bedroom and den, but I want to replace the carpet in the master bedroom. I also want to put DuraCeramic in the master bathroom. Another plan is to upgrade to stainless steel appliances in the kitchen and replace the counter tops in the kitchen and both bathrooms – probably Corian material in granite style.

So — I’ve come a long way and am making progress, but have a lot more to do!!!! I just want to get past this period of being all tore up — it’s driving me nuts!!!! ha-ha-ha!!!!