Our first big project

We've done a few small things at the new house, but this weekend we started our first big project! The project was supposed to be floors. We are going to replace two rooms of laminate, one room of carpet and the tile foyer with brazilian cherry engineered hardwood. We ordered the floors last weekend and I picked them up at Lowe's Saturday.

However... the family room had some wood paneling on the walls that we didn't care for. So, we decided what better time to remove the wood paneling than before putting in a brand new floor. (We don't want to scratch up a new floor working on the walls!) So Dick took the wood paneling off. Of course, we found some mold, some popcorn ceiling above the blinds and quite a few holes in the drywall! So, now our floor project is being superseded by a wall project. We need to remove the popcorn, remove the mold, seal the possible water leaks (!?), patch some large holes and a million nail holes, texturize with drywall mud and then paint! Sigh!

Then... we can remove all the floors we plan to replace and see what other work is waiting underneath! I figure it will be a few months before our new floors are in. But they'll be beautiful when they do get in!

(Incidentally, I was super excited that I was able to give away the old wood paneling instead of having to worry about the time and money to dispose of it. I listed it on freecycle. Do you have this where you live? It's like craigslist but it's all free stuff. It's a Yahoo Group. Anyway, one person who came to get some wood paneling also turned out interested in our old oak shutters that we removed. :-) Yay, and she actually paid good money for them!)

Here are a few "before" pics.

Who puts white carpeting in a dining room!? (Someone without kids?) ;-)

Laminate in kitchen and family room (old and cheap product,
not a color we like)

Can you see the diagonally-placed wood paneling?

Both kids were very helpful!
Here, Jackson is pretending to use a screwdriver!