A Slow Start

We've officially started our living room remodeling project.  Walker and I make a great team in a lot of areas, but home improvement is not one of those areas.  Walker's approach involves removing the old stuff in calculated sections, neatly rolling strips of flooring in perfectly proportioned strips that he will secure with three - always three - strips of duct tape, also spaced at perfect intervals.  He likes the trash to look nice sitting on the curb.  And it's all trash to Walker.  "Out with the old", in his mind, is "to the dump with the old".

Now, I grew up in a household where a lot of things were passed down, recycled, or repurposed.  My mom taught me to shorten ruffled curtains from the top, making a loop of fabric instead of cutting them off, so they could be let back out an moved to another window, or another house, later on.  She cut down an old bedspread my aunt gave her, removing the faded streak from the top, and refitted it for my twin bed.  Old closet bifold doors got repainted and hinged together to make privacy screens.  When my uncle changed the carpet in his living room, he removed it in one large piece, so we could relocate it to the play area of our basement.   Et cetera.

So when I look at a project, I look for things that can be reused.  Just because something no longer fits our needs doesn't mean it's garbage, right?  The louvered closet doors that I want to replace because I hate how dusty they get might be just the ticket for someone else.  Our old copper colored door knobs might give someone's home just the right finishing touch.  So I have a "save" pile, which will be offered first to Habitat for Humanity, then, H4H doesn't want them, listed on Free Cycle.  Drives my sweetie nuts.  All he sees is a big pile of trash.

Right now, it's slow going.  We have to move out all of our furniture.  I do not know where it's going to go.  First choice was the garage, but it's so hot out there, I'm sure it would be bad for our wooden pieces.  We have to demo the paneled walls, saving the trim to be repainted and reinstalled on the finished drywall.  We have to paint inside the closets, because they have not been painted since the house was built in 1953.  I have to make another attempt at fixing the hole in the dining room ceiling, because the current patch is not exactly a seamless fit.  We have to remove the old carpet tiles.  Then we have to repaint all the trim on the walls, repaint the doors, repaint the ceiling, and, when the contractor is finished with the drywall, paint the new walls.  Then we get our new flooring, after which all the furniture will have to be moved back into the room.  I get worn out just thinking about it.