life and puppies

It’s time for the big reveal! After ripping out the carpet in our bedroom, I sat in front of the computer day after day trying to decide how to proceed. Should we put in hardwood? Should we put in bamboo? Should we put in linoleum? Should we put in carpet? Should we do it ourselves or leave it to the professionals? Should we do the entire first floor (about 950 square feet) or just the bedroom (about 175 square feet)?  Should we buy from a big box store or a local place? Argh. The possibilities seemed daunting.

After just days, though, of having to stare at that nasty vinyl tile, and after almost six years of living with that dreaded carpet, we pulled the trigger and went to the locally-owned Eco-friendly Flooring, which has a little showroom on East Main Street. We could not be happier with the flooring. We chose a very light-colored bamboo and had the shopowner’s husband install it for us. All in all, the total cost was about $1100. We were told it was a day’s work, but it ended up taking three due to a late arrival on the first day and a sick kid on the second. Still, I would choose this option again in a heartbeat. I am so happy with how it turned out. I think it is just beautiful. I hope you like it, too.

Bedroom before

Bedroom after

Ok, you can’t see the floors that were there, but you can see the amazing job Aaron did on the bedroom walls. I love the color! It’s Sherwin Williams Hyper Blue. Here’s a better shot of the floors.

Bamboo floors

Floors

I also want to note that for some time now, I have wanted to buy some Picasso prints. Specifically, the ink drawings he did of animals. I have been enamored of The Dog or Dog for some time now, but haven’t been able to get myself to commit. Why? Because I can sometimes be cheap. Weird, I know. So I got it into my head that I would just do some of these drawings myself and that’s what I did tonight. For under $5, I bought two enormous sheets of paper and a black Marvy marker, and for just under $60 I bought three black frames with thick white mattes from Target. I cut the paper, drew my animals in pencil and went over them in marker. I stuck the paper in the frame and voila! Three framed “Picasso”s for $65. Actually, it was even less because I used only one of the large sheets of paper.

Owl and Dog

Camel