Accomplished: Stair Treads!

I am happy to report I have been able to check off a few things from my to-do list.

Today I:

• did the dishes
• am doing the laundry
• cleaned off the desk in the guest room
• and attached the stair treads

And I still plan on:

• taking a nap
• making dinner

Oh, yeah.

Also, floors and bathrooms are clean. I can't take credit for this one. It all goes to our lovely and eco-friendly house-cleaners, Brilliant Cleaning.

Here are the stairs before:

And after:

We bought the stair treads on ebay from this guy. We bought the adhesive from Home Depot... or maybe Lowe's. I'm actually not sure, because Bill picked it up when he brought all the nasty old carpet from the nursery to the dump. Anyway, we used Rhino Grip, which is VOC free, so I was able to tackle the job of applying it.

We have been meaning to get stair treads (or a runner) pretty much since we moved in (2 years ago this May). Wood stairs are a bit treacherous. Within a week or two of moving in I definitely slipped going down them and sprained my ankle. Lesson learned: no socks on wood stairs! And poor Ralph- he falls down the stairs about once a month. He is not the most agile beast, and sometimes his giant paws just don't find purchase. He had a tough time learning how to go up and down the stairs when we first got him. It was pretty hilarious to watch him try to figure out when to move which paw where. But, the stair treads should now eliminate any future falls for the big guy. And, with the baby coming we figured the time was now to get this job done.

Here's Ralph demonstrating going up the stairs (and Gert already at the top):

And going down (the trickier of the two for him):

Carpet Weekend

We did our research at Lowes today. Blurg. Totally more expensive then I was hoping. And, they won't give you an estimate in store about how much it would cost to tear out and haul away old carpet. To get that estimate you have to put a down payment of $40 and have them come to your house. The $40 is all fine and dandy if you decide to go with them, then it just goes toward your carpet purchase... but, if you decide you don't want to go with them they keep the $40. Seems to me like you paying money to get a bid. Hmmm, I don't much like that. And even with our rough estimate based purely on carpet price per sq foot the cost was more than I wanted to spend... especially for something I don't really want. What I really want is nice hardwood floor like the rest of the house, but that is definitely not in the current budget. Some day, some day...

I've used Flor tiles in the past (as a hall runner upstairs). I am very happy with their products, so we decided to check out how much it would be do wall-to-wall flor tiles. Sigh, out of our budget.

However, that led me on an internet journey seeking out other modular carpet tiles. Low-and-behold there are other carpet tile options out there. Cheaper tile options. Within our budget tile options. The websites for the discount places definitely are not as user friendly as Flor. The images are not as detailed and their are no side images showing the thickness of the pile, but whatevs. It will do. Now we just need to figure out which we want and we are on it.

Here are the sites we are looking at:

http://www.carpet-wholesale.com/carpet-tile-squares.htm

http://www.icarpetiles.com

and

http://www.focusfloors.com/

Anyone out there used and of these companies? Any feedback to offer?

Other than that the weekend has been pretty low key. The in-laws came up to visit yesterday and they brought up a crib from my parents house. It is sleigh style crib in dark wood. I'm not crazy in love with it (I would prefer a more modern streamlined crib and for it to be white), but I am crazy in love with the price (free!). Me might end up painting it white; it just really depends how it looks all set up in the room. We shall see.

The best part of the weekend was having Bill home- ALL WEEKEND. He is know on his new Mon-Fri day side only schedule. Which. Is. Awesome. It is just so nice having him home so we can do little errands (like going to Lowes) and hang out. I really enjoy having him around and not spending the majority of the weekend home alone. Yay, new schedule!  Yay, getting stuff done together! Yay!