We had about 24 hours to move everything from the living room and all three bedrooms into the dining room, office and hallway, two bathrooms, and a deck. Candy had to wait in the office on moving day.
Most of the artwork got stacked up in the hallway...
...or on the piano, under all the blankets.
Under the piano are all the other instruments (in their cases), and the rest of the music room is the staging area for all the wood.
The dining room is crammed full, floor to ceiling, with stuff from the living room, ...
...our wardrobe boxes, ...
...and all the beds.
By the time the movers had finished, Tim already had all the carpeting and nails out from the living room and a moisture-barrier paper down.
While we ran out for burritos, he set to work on the staircase.
It's surprisingly tedious work, removing carpeting, padding, and all the little bitty nails.
The guest bath, crammed full with crap from the three bedrooms.
The master bath, crammed full of furniture and boxes, mostly from our bedroom.
The master bedroom has a large deck in front, now home to the guest sofa bed from JP's room and my bike, all under a bright orange tarp. It also has a small deck off the bathroom, where a surprisingly huge stack of furniture and boxes also waits under bright orange tarps.
Before: Master bedroom, complete with dust bunnies.
Before: master bedroom's closet, with the world's cheapest fittings. Give a carpenter some scrap wood and tell him to finish the closet? This is what you get. We'll be redoing them when we move back in.
Before: "JP's room," aka David's room, aka Jason's room, aka the larger guest room at the end of the hall.
Some of the reasons we're ditching carpeting follow: Exhibit A, Hairballs
Exhibit B: Ironing Accidents
Exhibit C: puppy incontinence (Flicka?)
Exhibit D: The Futility of Vacuuming Fur from Staircases
During: Once they got the wood down in the living room, they put a coat of clear finish on a sample so that we could decide whether we needed stain to get a decent match with the existing floors or we could make a change to clear finish. We decided we liked this look just fine!
The lightly stained floors are nice, too, and we don't think it will be too jarring to make the change from stained wood in the dining and music rooms to unstained wood in the living room and stairs. It's all white oak.
Meanwhile, the six of us (Victoria and I, black lab Candy, and three cats Norton, Gjetost, and Syltetøy) have moved out to Sausalito! Our friend and host Jane is being a remarkably good sport about it.
One of our first nights here in Sausalito, Syltetøy left the cutest damp-paw prints on this placemat.
Candy is the perfect finishing touch for Jane's living room decor.
We're staying in the guest room, along with a lot of Jane's boxes. She hasn't quite finished moving in yet.
The cats think their new tri-tiered dining room is great fun.
Here's an unusual kind of family photo: 3 cats eating, V and Jane watching in the mirror, and yours truly behind the camera.
Norton and Gjetost dining together.
Syltetøy biding her time with drinks.
Syltetøy wondering when someone will deliver hors d'ouevres, no doubt.
Unfortunately, Victoria's wrist was a casualty of the sudden scope creep: she broke it after tripping and falling during some of our hectic Monday night moving prep. She'll be in the cast for several more weeks.
Gjetost, meanwhile, has gotten some kind of gum infection and has been spending a lot of time under thed.
You can still see that her lower jaw is a bit swollen, giving her more of the pointy Siamese head shape than usual.
Syltetøy keeps her company under the bed.
During: Living room. Two weeks later, the wood is all in and the second coat of finish is on.
During: the short staircase down to the living room.
During: first flight. The stairs are gorgeous, but did you notice that the treads have an extra piece in back? Turns out our stairs have unusually deep treads, and they had to piece together the standard treads with extra bits of wood in back. Extra gluing, waiting, sanding, fussing, ..., time, cost!
The next flight and second floor have never looked so good, and we don't even have baseboards yet!
During: Master bedroom and closet
For the first week after we move back in, Candy's cleats will be a hazard to the still-curing polyurethane finish, so she's going to have to wear shoes in the house. We've been getting her used to the idea during her walks, and she's the hit of the neighborhood!
Whose shoes do YOU think are cooler?
Although WE think the red boots are quite spiffy, Candy isn't so sure...
She doesn't seem to appreciate their retroreflective safety straps..
...Or the idiot who keeps taking pictures of her misery.