Beauty is a Beast

As my regular readers know, in March of 2012, we bought a short sale that needed quite a bit of work.  In addition to the typical things (like paint), we've had to replace a pool pump, do lots of tree trimming and yard work, and clearing out junk that the previous owner left behind.

Wow!  Looking at these pictures, 

I forgot how much she left behind in just the front hall.

Another thing we had to do was to remove all the carpet in the house.  The previous owner had cats and she let them do whatever they wanted all over the house.  Needless to say, that left some nasty carpet.  Add to that the fact that the cats had flees and the carpet had to go.  Immediately.

So before we actually moved in, we spent 2 months (on the weekends) ripping out all the carpet and installing laminate flooring in all the bedrooms.  We decided that we wanted to tile the hallway that had been carpeted, but that wasn't as urgent since we wouldn't have furniture in those areas to move around.

We took a few months to find tile that would work on Craig's List and at the local Habitat for Humanity store, and then hubby got to work.  Slowly.  He's done tile before, but this time was different.  He wanted to make a statement.  And he was doing it on the diagonal which meant more cuts.

But I think you'll have to agree, it turned out very well.

Coming in from the front door (that we don't use)

Such detail

Grouting = almost done = big smile

You know what I just realized?  These pictures were taken before the trim was put back, so it looks even better!

And how long did it take from the time we ripped out the carpet till he was done?  About 16 months.  But beauty like this is worth the wait.