The Inside Job(s)

Okay, so I bravely announced that The Kelly House projects are moving indoors for the season...and then I left you hanging.  While the outside of my house looks pretty nice now, the inside is a disaster.  An unqualified disaster.  I offer photographic proof.

Glue-encrusted floors.  Under the baby blue wool carpet that was pee-scented and stained, I found a thick rotted foam pad.  And under that, a 1970s-era carpet of gold, avocado green and brown.  Ick.  And it was stapled to the floor.  Under that, I found a pad that had turned to black clay and had to be removed with a putty knife.  And under that, I found...the glue-encrusted floors.  The floors in the entryway, front parlor, and dining room look like this.  Yuck.  I'm thinking this is not a DIY project.  My Christmas bonus at work will go towards getting rid of all this yuck.


Pee-pee carpet.  In the second parlor (which used to be my bedroom) the baby blue carpet still exists.  It's horrible.  So horrible, in fact, that I can't even show you a photo.  I'm too embarrassed.  Sometime soon, the last of the pee-pee carpet will be removed.  The naive part of me believes that the hardwood floor underneath will be beautiful.  The realist in me knows it will look like the floors in the rest of the house.

Kitchen wallpaper.  Remember way back in March and April when Mare and I rebuilt my front porch and put new countertops in the kitchen?  Yeah, I never finished hanging the kitchen wallpaper. 

Painted-over wallpaper and The Blister.  In the entryway and the front parlor, the walls are covered with this stuff, which I've been slowly removing.  (The carpet was the same color as the walls, by the way.) I would estimate that after a year of working on it, I'm about 50% done with the entryway, which is the smallest room in the house.  Make that very slowly removing.  In the front parlor above the mantel is the badly-patched hole where the stovepipe used to be.  I call it The Blister.  That'll be an interesting fix.


Dining room wallpaper.  This is my favorite room in the house.  I had good intentions of papering this last winter, but I couldn't decide on wallpaper.  Then spring came and...well, you know the rest.  Now I've decided on paper and just need to Do It. 



Yep, it's a disaster all right.  And even in the stretchiest of stretches of imagination, it won't all be done this winter.  Or even next winter.  Heck, I can't even decide what to start on first.  I have to get past this spinning-my-wheels stage and just rev up and start on something.  Anything.  I'll keep y'all posted.