Remodeling

It's been a whirlwind week.
Two incidences sum up how I feel.

[Part 1]
I dropped the girls off at school, first Sparkle and then Glitter, giving myself some kid-free time in the middle of the day.

I could finally mop the floor without worrying about little feet walking over the wet surface.

Each time I used the mop, I had seen the line of rust on the handle where I submerged it in the pail of water. Over the years, the rust got slowly worse. However, the mop always held, and I couldn't mop without the handle getting wet, so I just kept using it.

About halfway through the kitchen, as I was wringing out the mop head, the handle snapped between my hands and spewed brown flecks of rust all over the damp floor. There had been no warning, and now I was left with an even bigger mess on the floor and the tool for cleaning it up was broken.



[Part 2]
Most of the first floor of our house is tiled, however, one room has carpet. This was the carpet that the cats had to traverse on their way to the litter box. This was the carpet that the cats traversed when they didn't quite make it to the litter box. The cats have been long gone, but the carpet remained. This was the carpet that made me not want to have any visitors in the house. We were finally having the carpet replaced.

Two guys from the carpet store came and cut out the old carpet and hauled it out. They pulled up the underlying pad, and carted it out as well. No matter how much I had tried to clean the carpet, ripping out both the carpet and underlying pad was the only way to get rid of the smell and stains.

The carpet installers had to work in sections, moving the large pieces of furniture from one part of the room to another. The girls kept wanting to run in to see, but I only allowed them quick glimpses into the room, because I didn't want them in the way of the installers and I didn't want them to get hurt. The installers had sharp knifes, heavy boots, a hot iron, and an array of mysterious tools that would not mix well with young children.




Once the carpet was completely in and the installers left, I let the girls romp around the practically empty room. They marveled at the space while I knelt down and sniffed the new, clean floor.

It will still be a long process putting the room back in order. There are several bookcases, a huge desk, a large china hutch, as well as assorted bins and boxes of toys in the room. There are a dozen boxes of books and supplies jumbled together that need to be put away. We're moving some new things into the room, and taking out other things that we no longer need. However, we are all very glad that the carpet has been replaced and look forward to using the room more.