Our Next Stop

I'm going to start this post off with a gratuitous shot of Zoe and Nick patiently waiting on their mat to have feet wiped.  In case anyone is wondering, the "on the mat" command is possibly the easiest thing on earth to train and an absolute lifesaver when you have mud--which we seem to have a lot and when you were dumb enough to paint your mud room white, but I digress...

So, onward with our tour.  The next adventure was having our hardwood floors refinished and this came about next for a couple of reasons: 1. We still hadn't moved all of our furniture from the old house, so the house was mostly empty, and 2. because we were going to be away for a couple days and wouldn't have to deal with the dust/fumes.  Having the floors re-done involved removing the runner from the stairs, which I was only too happy to do, but then presented the problem of bare wood stairs.  Since not replacing the carpet right away could mean only broken bones for the dogs and possibly us and at the very least terrible scratching on the pretty new finish, we installed a new runner.  Here's a shot of the old runner:

This photo actually makes me shudder.  If you look carefully, you will notice that the "runner" is actually four low-quality utility room rubber backed mats stapled to the floor with a staple gun.  If you look at the wall going up the stairs, you will see where wallpaper was painted over and higher up where one of the kids let the bathtub overflow and the resulting water damage to the ceiling.

Here is the end result with refinished floors, new runner and drywall removed and re-installed.  Why did we need to remove drywall, you ask?  Well, when the house was built, at the bottom of the stairs to the left of this photo, there was a doorway into the family room.  The prior owners decided they didn't want it there anymore so they closed it off.  Unfortunately, their method involved nailing up a piece of drywall and just painting over it without the pesky task of using tape and joint compound--or bothering to get it straight.  It looked bad enough that I couldn't bear to photograph it.  This is what the bottom of the stairs looks like now, although this part of the project came along a little later:

We replaced all of the molding around the door (I would love to replace the door since it looks exactly like every other front door in our neighborhood, but for now it stays).  The tile was something we actually liked and it continues into the kitchen, so replacing it would be a pretty serious project.  Here is a shot of the "before" hallway:

And the hallway now:

The print in the hallway is a Michelle Masters piece called "Perfect Pear", which shows to rabbits trimming a topiary into a pear shape.  It's kind of like me and LAM working on all our home projects.  It can be seen here.  I met Michelle at the Philadelphia Flower Show and her booth is always the cutest one there!

~ESM