Another Tale From the Un-Handy Husband

As I recently blogged, Jackie and I are moving to her granddad's old place. And that means we are remodeling... everything.

The first thing we tackled was ripping up the emerald green carpet. And it was everywhere. The living room. Hallway. All 3 bedrooms. Every closet.

Even the bathrooms.

Adios carpet!!!

For the most part, the carpet came up easily. After that, we took up the pad and hammered down the staples. There were hundreds and hundreds of staples, and there was often no rhyme or reason to how the staples were placed. You could go several feet and not find one staple, but then there would be a patch with about 20 staples in a space about the size of the palm of my hand.

Working in the hall

After sending the carpet from the Emerald City on down the yellow brick road, we had to paint over the faux marble walls, which meant that every single square inch of wall space was going to need paint.

My future office/Star Trek room/man cave

After picking a color at Lowe's, we got to rolling...and rolling...and rolling...

After a long day of inhaling paint fumes, I serenaded Jackie with my own version of the Reading Rainbow theme song (Butterfly in the sky... I'm feeling really high) and a new twist on Carrie Underwood's "Jesus, Take the Wheel" (Jesus, take the roller. Take it from my hands, cuz I can't paint this wall on...my...own).

You call it a duster. I call it a hair piece... a bad one!

Once all the walls were painted, we turned our gaze upward to the light fixtures, which were originally all ugly, round, plastic fixtures. My brother-in-law Matt showed me how to change them out for new ones. And my brother-from-another-mother Keith Warren helped swap out the ceiling fan in the living room.

Today the estimator from Lowe's came by to measure for carpet, and I also hauled almost 20 boxes of laminate flooring from my parents' house to our new place.

After the Lowe's guy left, I decided that I could tackle replacing the light fixtures over the kitchen sink and by the back door. I was worried that the Un-Handy Husband would really screw it up, but it wasn't too bad.

This has GOT TO GO!

So far so good.

Yikes! We've passed the point of no return!

Looking good!

Much better!!!

I still have one more ceiling fan to change out (one in the master bedroom). And we have to lay the floor in the living room, but things are looking good for the Un-Handy Husband.

Jackie and I also owe a HUGE debt of gratitude to her parents for giving a place to live rent-free and for helping us so much, to my parents for the laminate flooring (and my mom for painting and my dad for staple duty), Jackie's brother Matt for his help and time, and to our friends (that are family to us) Keith and Ingrid Warren for their unending help and support.

That's it for now. I'm sure the Un-Handy Husband will have a few more adventures before this remodeling adventure is over. So stay tuned!