Almost finished

The first thing I noticed as I started to load these photos was that my camera lens is dirty!  So please ignore the little floating orbs.  They aren't ghosts, but are dust on the lens.

I took the week of Thanksgiving off from work and, as usual for me, spent the week working at home.  Kev is almost finished with the basement project.  I think I will lose our bet...but not by much.  His "complete" date was December 4, 2012 and we're close to that, but he has a wee bit of trim left and he'll be done.  

Which means that sometime, I will have to book a Guided Elk hunting trip for him.  Which means I have to save the money for that trip.  But it also means that I get to go along to watch!  It's a win-win situation!

So, one of my chores last week was to paint the basement, touch up areas, getting the main floor and the basement cleaned up.  I finished painting in the basement, and decided the original brown was just not working for me.  So, at 3 in the afternoon, the day before Thanksgiving, Miss Kat and I ran to town and bought a gallon of red paint.  Dragon's blood red.  I painted only this one wall red.

 I was still painting the first coat when Kev got home from work.  His first words?  "Wow!"

But, as it dried, he told me he really liked it, and we all agree that it warms up the basement.

We then went out to the shop and Kev brought in his Great-Grandad Chapman's saws and we hung them on the wall along with our Bear picture.  (Please forgive the blankets and such on the couch and the coffee table...Miss Kat decided to sleep on the couch where she could watch TV.)

Upstairs, we got our new carpet laid on Black Friday!  It photographs nicely, but it does have a dark nap to it that didn't show up well in the photos.

Kevin and I are famous for picking out carpet, and then discovering that the carpet we picked out was much lighter than we wanted.  (That's what happens when you pick out carpet looking at a 3 x 3 inch sample.)  When we picked out carpet this time, we purposely picked out something dark enough to hide dirt, cow poop and whatever else might get tracked in.  I think we succeeded.  It's a Stain-master carpet and we splurged on the Stain-master pad to boot.  It's nice and soft to walk and lay on.  It also makes the rest of the carpet in the house look awful, but we couldn't afford to re-carpet the entire house at this time...maybe next year...

 I had some paint touch up to do upstairs, but as I was painting, I discovered the paint, which should be the exact same color as what was already on the walls, was a wee bit darker, so I had to paint the entire room again.  (If I ever get my hands on the guy who mixed my paint in the first place, I think I might strangle him.)
  As we've traveled this saga, you might remember that I had brown furniture in my living room and this blue stuff was in the basement.  The brown couches did not go with the new carpet, so Kev hauled them downstairs and brought up the blue, which does look nicer.  He's all happy because he thought the brown couches were too soft.  He even brought up the recliner...which fits, but I don't think it balances the room, but I will let him keep it upstairs because it makes him happy.

Behind Miss Kat is where there used to be a door.  I need to find a new place to hang the sampler that's floating way above her head.  I'm thinking about moving it above the window and finding a new picture to hang where she's standing.  (See the recliner? Yeah...not balanced. Maybe a new, narrower end table would  help.)

So, our stair saga is almost complete. Kevin told me he wasn't doing another thing to this house for at least a year.  And then he looked at the fireplace, and said, "Except maybe for that fireplace."

Stay tuned...