One of many things keeping me busy

Cathy and I have a little home improvement, or rather neglect abatement work going on. We bought our house while it was no more than a foundation in the ground in 1997. Nearly 15 years have passed, and it's been a great 15 years of new home ownership. We've had to do virtually nothing to maintain our house, other than fighting with squirrels in attic spaces or ants in wet wall cavities because the builder failed to seal off respective entry points for vermin and water.

We're past due on interior maintenance. Only one room has been re-done, our son's bedroom after he moved out. Let's just say he held vastly different ideas on how walls and flooring can be used than I held. Other heavily used rooms weren't far behind in need of update. Having a large black Labrador in the house for many of those 15 years didn't help the main floor out. Boris was also an outside dog and brought a lot of dirt in.

We recently pulled the berber in the dining room and installed engineered oak flooring in there. The kitchen, fourier and bathroom are ceramic tile, pretty much impervious to any kind of abuse. That left the study and family rooms. The berber was well past due being replaced.

Funny how you adapt to your surroundings. You kind of know carpet is not that nice anymore, but until you move a 300 lb cherry desk that hasn't moved in 15 years, you really don't know.

Where the desk was. Gross, eh? Carpet initially cut back around

perimeter so I could run wires.

We decided to move all the furniture and haul away the old carpet ourselves. Our transfer station does not charge for carpet.  Cost a lot of money to have the carpet installers do this, plus they do it in a day and I wouldn't have chance to pull home theater wires. It always bugged me a little having wires run over the carpet along the baseboard in our family room to reach speakers. We'll be moving the home theater system to what is supposed to be the formal living room, since the layout is more conducive to theater. My study will move to the larger family room, where Cathy's spin bike and other exercise equipment will remain. Direct TV and phone lines have been pulled through under the floor. Speaker wires are now routed along baseboard under the carpet. The new carpet will come while I'm in Arizona. Cathy will be home to sign off on the work.

Family room. It's hard to believe how much crap was in here

when moving it all to kitchen or upstairs because there was no

more room left on main floor.

Next up will be kitchen work. Counter tops, sink and painting. Carpet ain't cheap, but kitchens can sink big bucks. The tile is a keeper. Happy with the quality, texture and color. Not quite sure yet how to fit in this remodelling effort with work and training.