Mi Casa es "Under Construction"

Today is Day 1 of our remodeling project. Although I am uber-excited to get the yucky gray and pink (yes, I did say gray and pink) tile out of our kitchen, remodeling projects rate at about the same level of pleasure for me as say, a c-section or a cracked tailbone...and yes, I've had both.

Once the guys have left for the day and James has had a chance to download some photos off the camera, I will post some "before" pics. Hopefully, he got a good one of that god-awful flooring. In the meantime, you can catch a small glimpse of it here. The gray and pink tile can be seen in the photo of Milla in her black skirt with pigtails on top of her head. Is that horrible or what? The flooring - not Milla's skirt.

Now here's the kicker about that tile: Gray and pink decor reached the height of its popularity around probably the early to mid-80's, correct? Well, this tile was put in somewhere around 1989 or the early 1990's - in other words, either when it was already out of style or moving in that direction. We only know this because the people we bought this home from lived here from 1989-2003 and they told us that they are the ones who put in that tile. It was one of the many "improvements" (their wording, definitely not ours) they told us they made when they bought the home from the original owners.

If the gray and pink tile are not enough to bring your lunch up in the back of your throat, just wait til you hear about the wallpaper. The previous owners had almost every single room in this house wallpapered. Between the gray, pink, and blue paper that was in the master bedroom and bathroom and the three different wallpapers in the kitchen alone, I'm not sure which room was worse. The kitchen had one kind of wallpaper on the walls, a different kind of paper on the bulkhead above the cabinets, and then a border around the entire kitchen. All of the patterns coordinated with one another so, on the bright side, at least they all matched. The problem however, other than the fact that I can't stand wallpaper to begin with, was that the three different papers in the kitchen were a pattern of pink and blue flowers and bows...............I'll say that again: Pink and blue flowers and bows. In. A. Kitchen. With pink and gray tile. Oh, I'm feeling nauseous again.

I don't normally make fun of people's taste in decor but seriously (do I use that word too much or what? Seriously....), I sometimes want to call up the previous homeowners and ask them what they were on because I sure could use it on some of those days when Reiss has me about to drive my SUV into a lake.

Anyhoo.....We are having the tile flooring in the kitchen ripped out, the gray carpet in the living room and dining room (that is now the play area since we took the table and hutch out and put them in the basement) ripped out, the U-G-L-Y brown linoleum made to look like tile ripped out of the entryway, the blue carpet ripped out of the hallway, and the 1970's orange shag carpet ripped out of the entryway closet. If you lost count, that's five different types of flooring in just those few rooms. Speaking of.....when we bought this house, it had NINE different floorings on the ground floor alone!

After all the flooring destruction, we are having a wall ripped out to open up the kitchen, dining room, and living room areas for more light and greater ease of child supervision - that's the best part! And then finally, after all that is finished, all flooring areas will be covered with wood flooring in a light oak color. I can't wait for the end results!

We purchased the flooring on Friday and brought it all in from the garage on Saturday. Reiss and Milla think the packages of flooring and rolls of underlayment to go underneath it are their own personal obstacle course, as they've been playing on it and riding their push toys on it for the last two days. We've been telling Reiss how loud his trucks will be on the new flooring once it's installed and of course, being a boy and being very active, the thought of making a ton of noise gets him pretty excited.

Reiss has been helping out quite a lot with the demolition efforts today. I've not had to pull him off Milla more than maybe one or two times today. Hey, you laugh but that's a big thing. Seriously.....

I'll be back with photos later............