Long Overdue: The Remodel

This is a post that is long overdue.  Going back over the past posts, I realized that I promised to show ya'll the redo of our house after we bought it.  To recap, we repainted pretty much everything in the front rooms and the kitchen.  (Sorry to say but I don't think I have any before and afters of the kitchen.)  Also, we tore up all the carpeting and laid down vinyl flooring.  With Jarrod working 70 hours a week at the time, I laid most of it myself.  I'm not saying this to play down his role by any means (if it weren't for his busting his butt at work, we wouldn't have been able to pay for the flooring.)  I am telling you this, so that when you see the floors, you will know that I. am. a. rockstar.  I'm not kidding of course.  But, it was super hard work and it makes me appreciate my pops even more for what he did and still does to make a living for his family.
Okay, I'll shut up and show you the pictures.

Wow, this is really bad quality.  I apologize.  You never know taking a picture with your phone, what kind of quality you're going to get.  Seriously, sometimes it looks like a professional took it and others you get, well, you get the above picture.  You get the idea though.  You see the color of the paint and the carpet right?

So, first things first.  Gotta tear that carpet up.  I thought this would be super easy.  Boy was I wrong.  I think my back was stuck in the bent over position for two days straight. First, the carpet had to come up. Then, we had to tear up the padding underneath and then (yeah, still not done) we had to hammer down all the nails that were sticking up from the floor.
 

Again, I apologize for the quality.  I must start using my actual camera. 

Once everything was up, it was time for momma to show her stuff.  Check out these floors!

Now why did this one turn out so good?!  I will never know

Of course Jesalyn had to get in on the action.  Is this not the cutest picture you have ever seen in your entire life?!  She looks like she knows what she's doing doesn't she?  

Before the floors we decided to repaint.  I wanted gray.  A lesson I learned through all this is that there really is no true gray color.  All gray has a little bit of another color in it.  If you read my blog before you know the other lesson I learned.  "If your best friend tells you that the paint chip you took home looks more blue than gray, you should believe her."   Yes,  I picked out what I thought was gray, bought like 4 gallons and started painting the walls.  Halfway through I realized that it did, indeed look blue.  I thought I could handle it and kept painting.  About 3/4 the way through, I decided that I wouldn't be happy so we went out and bought more paint and did the whole thing again.  Luckily, we had lots of people helping us paint or I would probably still be doing it. 

Here is my step-dad.  He was a professional painter for 20 years. Notice the drastic difference!

I must preface that since the "remodel" we have already moved things around and purchased new furniture, but you get the idea.  

and after...