I’m pretty much done painting everything I see in the house, but I’m not going to rest yet. We had an unpleasant shock when finally trying to replace the old, kid-stained carpet upstairs—asbestos flooring underneath. Why put flooring up there that looks like it belongs in the kitchen? Guess the same people who thought pink tiles on bathroom walls and floors was stylin’. Yes, I had the tiny pink bathroom floor tiles, at least, replaced with larger tiles of a soothing color, and what a relief to behold. This is what happens when you have a 1940s home.

We had to remove everything off the second floor so the “demolition crew” could do their thing. Then we had laminate flooring and all new baseboards put in. And then the monster cleanup of fine sawdust even on the ceilings. And then the painting began. The new baseboards needed semi-gloss and while I was at it, I painted doors and door and window frames. I also painted walls, a ceiling, and even old furniture. Sure looks fresh and clean around here! You’d think I’d be done with projects, but no.

While moving everything back upstairs from the packed basement, I tried to downsize some more. Threw out a lot, have a garbage bag full for the thrift store. I could not believe how many old photos we had—three boxes and a shoebox! These are besides the ones in my photo albums. So my next project is going through all those and taking clear photos of the ones I want to save in computer files. Amazing how years later many photos are not important anymore, especially when you can just search online to see scenery of places you’ve visited. I’m just saving my favorites and more meaningful ones, particularly the best photos of my family (it’s so fun to remember how adorable my kids were when little!). And I’m going to either label the photos or make an explanatory Word doc to go with certain sets, like the year we lived in the UK.

So this is what I’ve been doing the past three months. I suppose we are near being ready to sell the house in this hot market and move to a smaller place with less yard. A ranch house with walk-in shower, important for people like us starting to feel old and decrepit. Except now that we’ve fixed up the place and it’s looking tidy, I want to stick around and enjoy it!