So much done... So little to show

Its amazing. The first few weeks it felt like every little thing was a huge improvement and you feel like you're making tons of progress. Then... you get to the point where you spend 2 hours turning this:

We put the "no vacation" in renovation...

 Hi there, Becky here again.

Another productive and exhausting weekend is behind us and I think we're both starting to appreciate Mondays as restful back-to-the-office days!

Emilio already posted a bit about the progress we made, but while he was working on all that stuff, Sully and I had our own agenda.


First off, hiking in the woods.  I've found a nice little dog park near the house and they have trails through the forest where people look the other way on the whole local leash law thing.  So, luckily, the weekend started with Sully getting nice and tired.  Oh, and MUDDY.  Did I mention muddy?  So, the second thing on the list for Saturday wound up being bath-time for Sullivan.

Then, to work!

Honey, I think I blew up the Dining Room!

Wallpaper

It seems like such a great design decision at the time. Then you paint over it.. Or maybe paper over it.. Then you sell the house to some guy named Emilio and laugh as you drive away.  

I like wallpaper, I really do.  I just don't like tar covered 1930s wallpaper that was painted over.  Or horrible plate rails that aren't really plate rails (they have grooves...for you know...plates) but actually two pieces of base moulding that were tacked together and slapped up onto the wall of my dining room right at eye level such that it makes the room feel shorter than it is and makes the giant dining room windows look funny.  

So I did what anyone else would do.   I TORE IT ALL OUT IN A FIT OF RAGE!!!  Well.. what really happened was that Becky and I went to the Serv-U Locksmiths over in Springfield to get some copies of the skeleton keys we have (the only keys we have for the house) made.  While there we met their "wallpaper guy" who upon learning of our desire to remove wallpaper from plaster walls informed us to go against all commonly given advice and not use wallpaper remover or water or anything like that but to instead dry scrape it with a wall stripper he had, basically a 4in razorblade on a handle).  

We got home new toys in hand and this happened...