I may have mentioned before that this house was a definite fixer-upper. Neglected by the son of its late owners, it needed so much work, we made lists of things to determine our priorities. We had to start with the non-sexy stuff like a roof.
Now we’re down to the sexier stuff, like flooring. A couple of years ago, Derek and one of his brothers put down laminate in the front room where an icky old salmon-coloured carpet had been, but much to my chagrin, they stopped at the hallway. Something had come up and convinced them that then was not the time to do the rest of the main floor. A sore back or two, perhaps? I can’t recall.
Just before he moved a cabinet out of the way, Derek took a quick snap of the hallway, looking from the back of the house to the front. It doesn’t show my creative stain-hiding techniques that included a carpet runner over the carpet, and area rugs layered over the carpet in the room in which he’s standing. I steam-cleaned the old wall-to-wall but nothing could remove 30+ years of use. In its day, it was a high quality covering. But its day was over.
We were stunned by how much bigger everything looked once the laminate was down. And it could be my imagination, but it seems like the air is fresher, too.
The best part? No backs were hurt in the process. We traded labour on the barter system. Derek built a custom office desk in exchange for the floor installation.
A little bit of trim will go down here and there, some touch-up paint in a couple of places and furniture is not going back exactly where it was. It’s an opportunity to shake things up a big. And the cats approve.