Catch-Up Time!

I’m just going to go ahead and apologize for the amount of info in this post. This really is me “catching-up” on EVERYTHING! I did break it up a little by posting our Master Bathroom Makeover separately. (See below.)

Home Depot came to install tile in the kids bathroom on Friday, but they stopped while ripping out the floor when they saw what they assumed to be pieces of the original circa 1972 vinyl under the current circa 1995 vinyl. They said they weren’t allowed to touch anything older that 1985 because it may or may not have remnants of asbestos-based adhesive… GREAT.

  

So this is how they left the bathroom. Floor partially up and toilet in the bathtub. Obviously this would NOT do, so James and I did our research on asbestos flooring. We are 95% sure what the guys saw was just the adhesive to the current vinyl, NOT the old flooring, but better safe than sorry - James spent the weekend tearing out the vinyl according to asbestos removal code…

Which YES - involved a legit hazmat suit :) Along with quarantining the bathroom with a lot of duct tape and plastic. Doors, air vents, and every surface besides the floor covered, and everything he removed was double-bagged and thrown out the 2nd story window so it didn’t come through the house. It was a TON of work, but a lot less $$$ than hiring an abatement company to do the same thing for something that’s not even confirmed to be hazardous.

  

And here’s our tile-ready bathroom!

While he was doing that, I painted the guest room walls and trim. BEFORE…

  

And AFTER…

  

I used our “neutral” color on the walls - Creamy Mushroom by Behr, and for the trim I used Dove White by Benjamin Moore (color-matched by Sherwin Williams). Now I just need to find the box that has the bedding for in here!

I’m always looking for a better cleaner for our stainless steel appliances so when I saw this in a 2-pack at Sam’s I was all over it. THIS STUFF IS AWESOME! Just spray on and wipe off with a dry cloth. I swear it even prevents smudges afterwards… They also had a glass cleaner by this brand that I’m so picking up on my next Sam’s run.

Saturday night I met up with some bloggy/Twitter girls for Ashley’s birthday celebration at the beautiful Hotel ZaZa…

I’d actually been painting all day, kind of tired, and not feeling very cute so I didn’t know if I was going to be able to make dinner or not… But I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to meet up with these girls when they were just 10 minutes away. I put on a semi-cute outfit with a semi-cute (but kind of not) ponytail and went anyway…

Jenn, Miranda, Sarah, Amanda, Amy, Ashley, and Angie. I’d already met Ashley in real life, but I felt like I knew all of them. Seriously some of the sweetest, funniest ladies EVER! They’re all just as I imagined they’d be. Except taller! (Mental note: Wear heels next time…)

Dinner was scrumptious despite the little attitude our waiter was carrying… I’m so glad Sarah, Angie, and Ashley are good at “talking to the manager” because he hooked us up with a pool side bottle of [insert popular adult beverage brand name here], cranberry juice, and SPARKLERS to celebrate the birthday girl.

Fun times!!! So glad I can now REALLY call these girls friends :)

Monday was CARPET DAY!!! For the record - both the carpet and tile were supposed to be installed before we moved in, no thanks to Home Depot :-/ After dealing with the rudest flooring specialist ever and 3 cancellations, I was thrilled that this was finally happening!

It was a bit complicated being there with both the kids. The installers completely occupied upstairs, as well as our bedroom since the closets had carpet. I had no where to gate off the kids, and absolutely NO WHERE to let Hadley nap. It was a looong day.

Hadley can sometimes go through 2-3 outfits in a day and I’d forgotten to plan for that! Since all her clothes were upstairs we had to resort to some of Knox’s things in the dryer.

I let them run outside as much as possible!

  

This girl took full advantage of the freedom! Can you tell how dirty she is? She earned herself a back-porch hose down.

But the carpet looks great! (You can also see the transformation in the Before and After guest room pics above.) We went with a light, neutral toned frieze. I was torn between doing “specks” or not, but in the end I decided that since the majority of the carpet would be upstairs in several low-light areas, the lighter solid would look best. I do think it looks great in all the rooms :)

I’m so relieved to finally have this done. We haven’t unpacked most of upstairs because we were waiting on this.

And here we are today…

  

Don’t they look so cute and colorful? We met the ADT guy this morning, are fixing to run some errands, and then it will be more unpacking and setting up later on :)