And so I wanted new doors.....

....in our front hall closet.  Mind you the old doors were OK, but we never put them on after we painted the living room level....many years ago.  Yes, we have been living without front hall closet doors for eons.

So we enlisted the help of a friend and had a couple new doors put in – front hall closets and kitchen pantry door.  And they looked awesome.  Unfortunately, that expanded into “let’s do all the doors and closet doors” – that’s six doors upstairs and triple the closet doors.   During one of my trips out of town, our guy got 85% of those doors completed.  He also managed to put a California closet setup in SBJ's closet, so that was cool.  Then I came home and our guy was still working on completing those other upstairs doors.  So, I had to work around the mess, the dust and the noise.  That was fine.  In between all of this, various car issues for Mr. Bill which our guy also resolved, the garbage disposal needed replaced, lights needed fixing, he took out our basketball hoop and pole, etc…..every time we turned around it was something else.

Then, the doors looked so good, we had him build new shelves in our family room.  SBJ wasn't thrilled to remove all the books ("Ever heard of a library Mom?"), but it had to be done.  Our guy took out those ugly shelves with the metal brackets and built all new shelves/bookcases AND opened up the entire area underneath the shelves so we now have that space.  As part of that, we had him paint the family room and patch all the places that needed it, etc.  He also installed feature lights for the bookshelves which really highlight all of his hard work....not to mention my wonderful books.  

Then, the painting upstairs started.  The living room and family room were first – a lot of patching and many coats of paint later….I went out of town so he could paint the upstairs.  The lighthouse room, my office/bear room, the 2 baths and the hallways got done.  Then, the kitchen and master bedroom were taped and ready for paint but our guy had to reset two of the ceiling fans upstairs as they were coming off the brackets/no longer secure.  He had to fix a couple of lights in the closets…needless to say, it seemed to be a never ending project. 

And since the doors and such looked so good, Mr. Bill decided we needed the upstairs floors refinished.  My mom had hers done and Bill was so impressed, he called the same guys and booked them for the week I got home.  "This week?" I said.... The painting wasn't even done.  There was no way our guy was finishing up the last two rooms and the kitchen in time. 

So ultimately, I checked us into the Residence Inn up the road because we can’t all sleep on the pullout couch in the family room.  Mr. Bill, SBJ and our guy moved EVERY SINGLE THING out of the upstairs in one night....took them from 2-midnight to get it all done.  Good thing I still don’t have living room furniture as everything from the upstairs was moved to the living and dining room.  Well...and some stuff in the garage.  Oh yes – I must digress.  Ever since all this started, we had only been able to use one side of the garage and very little of the basement as tools and equipment and such were everywhere.    And the dishwasher went out while I was still gone…a new one subsequently was ordered.

So finally the floor guys came and did their awesome work.  The new dishwasher was installed and the painting finished in time for Christmas.  I get it now.  A couple years ago we redid our bathrooms.  From that point, everything else started to look lack-luster.  Once those first doors were done, the others paled in comparison.  Once all the closet doors were done, the walls looked horrible.  Once the painting was done, the floors were the ugly-duckling.  Everything is beautiful, but it's been a long process.  We have a few touch ups and such, then no major projects until spring. 

I have a list already for our guy....stay tuned.