This is the Year...

About six years ago, we took out a home equity line of credit. We had lived in our home for 12 years, and there were some rooms that were looking pretty rough! We wallpapered the kitchen and put in a second bathroom through the years, but we were still walking on the 5-year carpet left behind by the previous owners in 1995. The walls in the living room and one bedroom were also exactly the same as what we'd purchased, although we had turned Dollface's room into a purple, butterfly paradise somewhere around 2003. Still, there was a lot to do to this house...

Shortly after opening the line of credit, Mork and Mindy decided to get married, and we used that line to help finance a lovely day of memories for them. Then Dollface graduated and started college, 'nuff said. Shortly after that, Peanut was born, and the new grandparents had cross-country trips to finance, to snuggle and tickle that baby. Oh, and we finally resurfaced the original bathroom the same year that Dollface was engaged to Snake, and the parents of the bride were happy to plan and finance much of their day of bliss! Along the way, there were also cars to fix, appliances that needed replacing and various other items that needed that money more than we thought the "main house" did...until this year.

"This is the year to redo the house," we said, and Sweetie and I deemed it so in January (or maybe February, who can remember?). We talked a LOT about carpeting, painting, and furniture, and then allofasudden we realized it was September, and what had we done? Nothing! (Well, I broke three fingers, but that's another story.) Anyway, finally, in the ninth month of 2013 we decided to get to it! We bought paint: a high-gloss white for the trim, and an eggshell/satin in Linen and Clamshell for the walls; and we put it in the butterfly room, where it sat for nearly a month, until...

One day, Sweetie moved some furniture out of the spare room and into the butterfly room, and then I moved some things out of the living room into the butterfly room, and then we moved all that living/dining room furniture into the middle of that big room, and we painted our hearts out for 3 days!

Then we went out to order carpeting, and we moved the rest of the things that we could move into the butterfly room, and we just ripped out that nasty, old carpeting:

Even on the stairs!

And then the butterfly room looked like this:

The sofa would not fit into the butterfly room, and when it was finally on the curb, the cats freaked out. THERE WERE NO SOFT PLACES TO CURL UP ON OR HIGH PLACES TO SEE FROM! Well, there was still Pretty's lap, as I sat on a lawn chair with an old ottoman under my ankles!

Luckily for the cats, the carpeting was installed pretty quick...

...and furniture was delivered and put together!

I forgot to take photos of all the boxes (there were 14, many of them taller than me!), but I assembled 2 (of 3) sofas in just one day! (I did need a power screwdriver and a strong hand to get the wheels onto the bed of the sofa bed...but other than that, this was all me!)

The third sofa is a sectional that will go in the basement, once we get the old one out... I also managed to get that butterfly room put back together and use-able!

And I bought a purple chair, that I love. :)

It's been a busy week, and I am ready to sit down (preferably on one of my new sofas)!!! There are still a lot of details to work out (curtains, finding everything we've moved out of the way in the last couple weeks, decorating with our new color scheme), but all I want to do right now is knit. I'm making a pillow cover, so I can use my old pillows on the new sofa! It only makes sense then that you'll most likely find me building another sofa in the basement this afternoon, right? Ah well, maybe I'll knit tomorrow.

This is the year for our house, indeed...even though we got a really late start. :) I hope you've reached some of your goals so far this year as well...have you made any big changes?

Thanks for stopping by, and whatever you're crafting or remodeling, I hope that you're meeting your goals for 2013!