The older children are in BC with their dad’s side of the family and Ian and I are fixing up their rooms. Hey remember that time when they were in BC for a week and we re-did my bathroom? That was crazier times than this one, fo’ sho’. That was removing three giant plumbed fixtures (the sink and tub of which were cast iron and like a thousand pounds) and then pulling up three layers of floor and pulling down lath and plaster walls and then putting down porcelain tile which turns out to be a bitch to work with. And if the bathroom wasn’t back together by the time the kids were home, the house was unlivable and I was screwed. Dire consequences indeed.

Here’s Ethan’s room. It’s difficult to get a better shot of it because it is ridiculously small. I believe I measured it at 87 square feet (and no closet). Unbelievably, we offered him the largest room in the house and he turned it down, opting for this one. It’s because this little nook just fits a single bed and I told him my idea of hanging curtains across it so the bed would be enclosed. His eyes sparked and he said, “I want it.” So we’re finally going to put curtains up for him this week.

This round of renos is not as crazy as the bathroom renos. As long as we get the flooring down before the kids come back it’s cool. Though I would love to have it together enough for a big reveal. I’m a terrible giver of surprises, but I can’t stop trying with the kids. I ridiculously crave that “eyes lit up” moment. And we’ve kept this pretty low-key, so I think the only thing they’re really expecting is some new flooring. Maybe paint.

Here’s a crappy, nighttime before shot of Rachel’s room. Ian is concerned that she will hate that I’m getting rid of her precious pink & purple in favour of blue. In my defense, it is a very purpley blue. A lovely, flaxy blue.

Okay, whatever. If she hates it, she can paint over it.

So Friday night we handed the kids over to their dad and went straight to emptying their rooms and scraping stucco off the ceilings – getting the stucco off the ceilings wasn’t a mandatory part of the renos, but we do want that stucco gone and it’s such a gross job and we thought that right before pulling out the carpet was the perfect time – because then the carpet acts like a big absorbent drop-cloth.

Saturday and Sunday we had to work around Hannah – someone needed to hang out with her while she was up, and we couldn’t do loud tasks while she napped. Ian’s mother took her Saturday afternoon while we ran to Home Depot and then started to put together their beds and pulled down more stucco. With Ethan’s room good and scraped, and our shoulders begging for mercy, Ian said, “I wonder how much drywall is? We could just drywall over it” And I said, “certainly not cheaper than the tongue-and-groove paneling I want to put on the ceiling. We could just put that over it.” So we bought some tongue-and-groove pine to put on the ceiling. Hello cottage.

Sunday we pulled up the carpet in Rachel’s room and got most of the particle-board sub-floor up, but then we had piles of carpet and subfloor and nowhere to put it. Today we borrowed Firefly’s truck and Ian ran some of our demolition crap to the city dump and then we purchased plywood sub-floor and our pine planks. That was ridiculous because we then spent most of the afternoon just on carrying this stupid amount of lumber up to the second floor and carefully stacking so it could sit for a day or two acclimatizing to the area where it will be installed.

Hey, who needs a hallway, anyway, right?

After returning the truck and getting Hannah from daycare, we managed to finish taking up the carpet and sub-floor in Ethan’s room by taking it in half-hour turns to bend over finding and pulling out nails while the other person rested their sore body watching Hannah.

After putting Hannah to bed, we had been talking about laying some subfloor, but instead we just started to cut in the paint on Rachel’s room and then quit for a beer and early bedtime. Last night Ian was up working on a client site that needed to be done for Monday morning in order for him to have his holidays this week. I stayed up for a while helping with some regular expressions, but then I wienered out and went to bed around midnight. God knows when he got to bed. And then we got up at 7 this morning in order to get Hannah to daycare and get started early.

I figure we have to have the planks down by Wednesday at the latest if we’re to leave ourselves time to get enough coats of varathane on it before the kids are back. Hopefully Wednesday isn’t too late. I remember when we refinished the floor at Robespierre it took daaaaays. But maybe part of the problem was that we were living in a different house and constrained by kids’ schedules so Ian could only get over there to do a coat once a day. Also, that was a LOT of hardwood all at once.

Too bad this is just a bunch of before pictures and doesn’t look like much. It’s coming together beautifully in my mind. Hah.