A bit of an improvement

I'm filthy and I smell of paint and bug-spray. Someone's going to have to wipe this smile off my face, though.

We had an absolutely stellar day at the lodge!

We awoke early, loaded up, drove to the Depot, gave them all our money, then headed to HPL. We met Mum and Dad at the landing and they joined us for the day. Apparently it was gorgeous outside. I couldn't tell as I spent all of it inside painting in the back bedroom. It. Looks. So. Good.

A quick refresher:
Before: a charming melange of white panelling, grey trim and a certain je ne sais quoi with the red shag carpet. (remember, you can click on photos for close ups, though in this instance you're probably better off not to)

Yesterday, while D and I were still at dance competition, the boys got the primer on the walls.

Today, I got started with the painting. Don't worry, I've already threatened revenge on my mother for not only photographing my butt (augh) but for photographing it from such an unfriendly angle when I appear to have left my neck at home. (augh augh).

The work of many hours reduced to no time at all through the magic of blog: Tada! The painting is finished! The paint is still wet in spots, that's why it's blotchy (my story and I'm sticking with it.

At about supper time, I informed the Captain that I wanted to get the floor into the room today too. He politely commented that he thought that plan was rather "ambitious" but wisely didn't say more. Otherwise, he'd have found the uncomfortable end of a utility knife jammed up his nose.

I have to confess, this "Allure" flooring is nifty stuff! It's about as thick as a piece of cardboard and you score it a couple of times with a knife and snap it to finish the cut. One edge (the grey bit you can see in the photo) has adhesive facing up. The opposite edge of each plank has adhesive facing down. Layer one sticky bit on the other, and Bob's your uncle! The flooring sticks together. You don't need any kind of underpad, and it doesn't stick to the subfloor, so it floats over most everything. It's flexible stuff, so it molds to the contours of the floor.

There is one caution I have though, and the Captain can tell you about this from first-hand experience: the adhesive is VERY sticky, so if you happen to kneel on it by mistake, you can expect to lose a neat strip of leg hair.

(Oh, I laughed until my belly hurt. Does that make me a bad person?)

What impressed me was how quickly the floor went in. We started the floor at 6:45 and by 7:30 it was done. That includes the small learning curve at the beginning as we figured out how it fit together, how best to cut it, etc. Sure, the room is only 8' x 8', but still. That's fast!

We still need to paint and install some quarter-round trim at the bottom of the baseboard, but this room, she's darned near done!

I have a few more photos of this weekend's cottage projects to share, a new raft of colour samples (this time for our bedroom), and some plans for the bathroom and next weekend in general.

Good times!