Busy September

Before this month ends I suppose it's time to finally get a post up about this months activities.  We are fully back to our homeschool schedule, and the garden is still producing as we gathered up our peanuts and sweet potatoes in the first of these harvests for us.  We've cleared out the last of the beans and loofah squash that had grown so thick over the trellises we'd set up.  We are now preparing our beds for Fall planting which I'm having to learn that here in Central Florida is actually the preferred time for a greater yield because it's still warm for months and we won't have the intense heat and humidity of the summer months.

Now with that being said the activity that has really taken our time and attention and had our house in a state of chaos for the past month has been replacing the old carpet in the living room and Kevin's office.  When we moved in we decided to live with the old light blue/grey carpet that was original to this 20 year old home, until we completed a few other projects first and had a chance to live here and decide what would be the best type of flooring for us here in this home and environment.  I'm glad we waited because initially I was looking at tile throughout and though that would look nice, I don't think it would work as well as the antiqued hickory laminate we chose to go with.

Here is the living room and my work space in the far corner near the window after we've removed books and decorative items and prepare to move the furniture.  Bea's enjoying her last days laying on the carpet here.

With the bookshelves moved Kevin began removing the carpet and pad against this wall first to lay the flooring

With the new fireplace in we could now begin the process of clearing out furniture and ripping up the carpet and padding to lay flooring, do the trim and then move furniture and all each piece holds to then move on to the next section of flooring.

Kevin's put down the underlayment and is setting out the first floor boards

I took this opportunity to paint the armoire in my crafting and office space a country white which makes it work so much better in this space.

The first pieces of flooring and trim are complete and the armoire is painted and we've moved these along with the bookshelves and it's contents back into place as we prepare to move other furniture and continue the process of laying this new flooring.  The look of this works really well with the rock work we did on the fire place when we replaced the old one.

The new flooring from this angle with the fireplace and the bookshelf back in place.  The fans were needed, it's in the 90's outside and humid so even with the air conditioning it's hot while working on this.

The longest process for Kevin that gave him a real workout and caused another intense cleaning spree in the house was removing the white tile by the front door.  He initially worked with a hammer and chisel a little section at a time until we made a trip to Harbor Freight and picked up a wider chisel for his hammer drill that made much quicker work of this part of the project.

Making real progress with the old tile and all the grout once he had the chisel piece for his hammer drill

Almost done, you can see a pile of the fine dust that was all over from this process by the broom

We also replaced the ugly light in the hall entry area and Kevin's office that work much better with the look of our furniture and the new flooring.  As I share my pictures I won't have all the finished ones yet as we still have some final work to complete and I need to find my camera cord to download more updated photos.  The work at this time that still needs to be done is the trims on the edges of the flooring by the kitchen, and hallway. The rock work at the base of the fireplace hearth to cover the old brick now that the floor is in place this can be done. Then before we put everything back on the shelves and in Kevin's office we're taking the time to go through everything to clear out materials no longer needed as well as to find nicer looking storage containers for all the DVD's we have.  So little by little we are making a real change that is looking really nice.

This is the hall as the tile is being removed with the old light up

Glad to see this one go.

Our new hall light that works much better for our purposes

That's it for now.  My next post will be of the finished look the new floors, lights and furniture in place give to our living space.  In the meantime the organizing process continues.