Saturday, December 06, 2008

Getting Ready For Daniel and Meghan

It won't be long now -- only a couple weeks -- before Daniel and Meghan arrive to spend the Christmas holiday with us. We have been so excited to see them again (it's been a couple years since they've been to New York) but we've realized the house needs some major upkeep and redecorating before we can comfortably host them.

What that means is we don't want to make them sleep in the basement rec room.

SO -- poor Bree has had to give up her second bedroom as we're converting it to a guest room. We've torn out the 20 + year old carpet (there wasn't even any pad LEFT underneath except in a few places!) and painted the walls. We had new carpet installed this past Monday and now all that's left is some finishing touches (curtains, a new bed, putting up the closet doors, etc.) I'm hoping to get out today to find curtains. I already found an inexpensive comforter set that will work well for guest room purposes. Wouldn't it be great to find a few pictures to hang as well?

Next up -- both the upstairs bathrooms. The main bath needs to have the shower doors taken down (we hated them -- so hard to clean!) and the shower/tub needs recaulking, splash guards, etc. We are also planning to paint. I need to find a new shower curtain set and find the material I bought to make curtains AND actually make the curtains (which should only take a couple hours -- it's just getting everything ready and set up to sew.) We also want to get the picture we bought for the bathroom framed and hung. Other decorating in there would be a plus too.

Our bathroom (the master bath) -- yikes. Needs a lot of work. For starters, we are going to repaint. Dave needs to replace the toilet and we bought a new light fixture to install. I would like to put in a new, bigger mirror over the vanity. I would also like to paint the vanity to freshen up the look. We would love to put a new floor in (I picked out the stone floor at Lowes which will probably feel really weird on our feet but I love the texture and look) but that will probably have to wait until sometime later. There's only so much time (and money!)

I have already purchased a shower curtain and rugs for our bath but still need to find curtains. So that's also on my list of things to do this weekend.

Of course, we need new blinds all over but I'll at least get some for the guest room and the 2 baths.

Let's see. Oh yes. The carpeting downstairs all needs to be cleaned. Big time. So we have professional cleaners coming on Tuesday to take care of that. It's going to be a major job getting the house ready (so much stuff in the family room to get rid of!) They will move the furniture out (leaving the really big stuff, like the entertainment unit and piano) for each room. I am praying they'll be able to get the carpet looking nice again. I hate the thought of replacing it all.

After that it's just getting the house decorated and cleaned. There are so many little things I would like to do -- I just hope I can get to half of them before Dan and Meg arrive. Once they are here, my attention is going to be on enjoying the family and the season -- not worrying about the house. So whatever isn't done yet, well, it won't be getting done.

It's going to be a couple of crazy, busy weeks around here but with any luck at all, things will get done. With any luck at all.

Here's praying for luck :)

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