The Day the Carpet Came

So here's the deal. Getting new carpet was something we'd been desperately wanting/needing ever since before we moved into this house almost four years ago. And it has been totally wonderful since it's been in. Completely worth it.

Howeverrrrrrr..........

Having it installed when we did caused me to come thisclose to having a nervous breakdown. Okay, I did have a nervous breakdown. Do you know how big of a pain it is to move ALL of your stuff that is currently on your carpet, OFF of it? (Take a look around at hour house right now and imagine it.) And that wasn't really the half of it.

I already had a ton of other projects going on, like sorting through all of our stuff and getting rid of clutter, and switching the kids' clothes for new sizes and seasons, and going through all their toys, plus I had a ton of churchy stuff I was having to do, and Halloween-y stuff.

 I was in the throes of sewing Mark's epic Jedi costume (carpet was installed on October 27th)

 And sewing this mermaid costume for my niece...

 

My *^%*%$! sewing machine could sense my stress and was skipping stitches left and right. I was up till 1:00 am finishing it the night before the carpet came.

*And did I mention that we'd also just painted almost the entire house??*

I was frantically trying to finish painting baseboards the night before, too. I didn't finish...

Photo was taken at 1:35 am the morning of the installation.

Gross, right?! In case you forgot, the previous house owner had a pet Saint Bernard, who was apparently sickly and so lived inside. When we got the carpets steam cleaned before we moved in, even though the house had been sitting empty for a year or two, the eau de dog was seeped deep into the carpet and pad and getting it wet meant that for the next 8 months or so, our house smelled like a wet, slobbery dog. That was a lovely surprise. And we were still vacuuming up fur and finding it in dark corners for years afterward. Words cannot express how much I hated this carpet. It was cheap quality to begin with, rough, had no nap or pile to speak of, stained easily, etc. etc. etc......

Oh, and then there was Luke's infamous Nail Polish Spill of 2010. Still as bright as the day it happened!

Anyway, somehow we managed to move out the furniture. But since we were still living there (unlike a real move) we couldn't put everything away.

There's most of our stuff!

There's some more!

 

Fun tidbit: Mark flipped our recliner over so he could move it, but before he could, Luke (He-Man that he is) flipped it back over and the corner of it gouged a big divot into our FRESHLY PAINTED wall. (And yeah, it's still there.) Thanks, son!

 And there's our fish, swimming in a spare trash can.

 

And there's Madelyn making homemade Halloween cards the night before, because I'd decided to just start another project that day because I am insane.

 I was pretty much a zombie the next morning, and was still in the bathroom getting dressed when the carpet guys showed up. I could hear big "RRRRIIIIPPP" noises, which was an extremely joyful sound to hear. I came out and Mark had somehow managed to shove the rest of our furniture into the kitchen. It took the guys like 20 minutes to have that old nasty carpet GONE. Halle-freakin-lujah.

The kids kept busy watching movies and watching the guys work for a while, but I knew it would be several hours before they finished. Plus I needed to get Luke away from the scary carpet nail situation:

So I took Luke to Jo-Ann's to get some more fabric for the Jedi costume and kill some time. I told Madelyn to take some pictures for me, which apparently she took very seriously. 

She took 105 pictures!!!

(It is impossible to resist doing carpet angels on this new stuff. It is so soft.)

 The new pad we got is made from recycled rubber from Nike.

The carpet is from Home Depot's Soft Collection. It's called Modesto II in Butter Pecan. It is a polyester twist with a medium pile. Our next choice was the same style/brand but in the "Spice" color. This had more of a cool white undertone. It is luscious.

More Madelyn pictures.

 

HAAH!! I laughed so hard when I saw this in the camera. LOL. She also took about a dozen photos of her foot where she had a huge blister from a hornet sting. I decided not to post those...

 

I actually took the kids down to St. George after lunch, for their cousin Ava's birthday party.

  

She liked the costume!

By the time we got back home, the carpet was done and Mark had already started to move the furniture back in place. First thought: "It feels like a new house!!!" YAY! And it smelled like one, too. YAY!!!

 

 And then Madelyn had to get dressed up for yet another Halloween party! Sheesh. Long day.

 The next day we had church and then the kids played with the giant cardboard tube that the new carpet had come rolled around. They mostly zoomed cars down it, but I caught Luke trying to send his sippy cups down, etc.

 

 Then it was back to sewing (no rest for the weary)

Mark resumed work on Madelyn's bed

And then for the next month and a half my house was a complete disaster. It was like we'd just moved, but we still had school every day, and gymnastics, and plus then I was trying to finish painting baseboards and all the doors in the house while putting everything away. Luke was so upset by all the chaos (which is really saying something) that his potty training progress came to a screeching halt and he is only just starting to use the potty again.

We were sick pretty much the whole month of November. I was SO exhausted. And then the holidays began! And I am just NOW getting over those!

And that is why this very long post is five months late. The end.