Setback Number One . . .

As my sister would say, I've been a poor internet friend. Does it count that I've made countless numbers of posts in my head over the last month, keeping you updated on all the changes that have taken place?? Guess not, since this is the first time you're heard this. I promise that I will post date a few posts from the past month to bring you up to speed on what's been going on. But this post is in the present, so pay attention. I will give a little background to help you understand better.

As I've told you, we are in the process of selling the house. No takers yet. And not even any offers. That's okay - the Lord knows when and that is fine with me. One of the things we have held off on doing, as far as repairs go, is to replace our carpet in the family room and hallway. The carpet is 10 years old and needs replacing. I know that. I also know that their are hardwood floors underneath, so the new owner just has to pull the carpet up and presto, an instant new floor. As the weeks have passed, one of the questions that has come up from countless realtors and prospective buyers is what kind of flooring is under that horrid carpet. Ok, ok, I get the point. So, I finally take the plunge and decide to rip it up myself. I'm moving anyway and won't have to put up with the hardwoods. I don't like hardwoods in my living space and this room is where our TV is in and my place to curl up on the carpeted floors and watch a movie. The whole house has hardwoods and I have covered most of them up with carpeting - especially my stairs and upstairs hallway - it has made it much cozier and much safer for my clutzy family (remember my cut finger). Yeah, I couldn't see my kids learning to walk up and down HARDWOOD stairs when they were learning to walk - disaster!! Anyway, T and I decided to take the plunge and just do it. Also, as a side note, we had had comments about our kitchen linoleum being to worn and called our best buddy contractor friend to fix it. He finished most of it today. We decided to start in our hallway, just to see what condition the floors were in - we moved in with the carpet already laid, so we weren't exactly sure what we were dealing with. After spending an hour ripping up the tacks, padding and carpet, we concluded that they looked pretty nice. What do you think? And don't mind the kitty.

Yeah, I think they look nice too. So we decided to take the plunge and go for our 14X16 family room. We were hesitant recognizing that they room was pretty large and taking it step by step just praying for great hardwoods and not big water spots or stains. Looks just as nice as the hallway, huh??.

As you can see on the right side of the picture, we have a fireplace and a gorgeous stone hearth. It is one of the focal points of the room and thanks to a very generous Christmas gift from my father, has a beautiful fireplace screen. Unfortunately dad, I can't take that with me when I move. Boo, hoo. Ok, ready for this. We get to the fireplace and continue ripping up the carpet, only to reveal that the HARDWOODS STOP!! Yep, you read that right. They just stop and floor board continues from there on. WTH!! For those not in the IMing world, that means WHAT THE H**L!! T and I were in shock. I checked the farthest corner of the room only to reveal that there were 3 planks of hardwood. The missing hardwood isn't even centered in the room. From what I understand from a long time neighbor, this house had water damage a LONG time ago. We have a postal slot in the family room that the mailman puts our letters in from the outside, they go down a shoot, and we collect them from the inside. Pretty cool when it's 10 below in the winter! Well, according to our neighbor, at one time, a running garden hose got placed in that postal slot and obviously destroyed the part of the floor that is missing its hardwood. Of course, we didn't think about that story as we were so gleefully ripping the carpet up. It's sort of hard to see because of the lighting but the hardwoods just stop where the stone hearth begins. Tomorrow should prove to be an interesting day. Now what do we do??