Remodeling Our Upstairs: Weeks 8 & 9

So, it's been 9 weeks now since we've had a bedroom to ourselves- ugh! Sharing a room with Corban is getting really old. Jesse was out of town for work 5 of the last 14 days plus he was busy a few other days and, of course, he continues to work full time. So, it's hard to get a good chunk of time to work on the upstairs but he's still plugging away! I must say, though, we are both starting to lose some momentum and motivation on the project. We are tired:) We hope to be done by the end of March but only time will tell- we'd appreciate your prayers for us to meet that goal!

So, I'm throwing in the above shot from 2004 of the old railing around the stairs so you can see what it looked like. There was a lot of room between the floor and bottom horizontal bars and also between each vertical bar- you know, enough for a kid to get their head wedged into or try and get their body under and fall right down the stairs- lovely:) Plus, the posts were screwed into the carpet so it was real wobbly and not as secure as it could have been.

Here is the start of Jesse installing our new railing. We had 3 options for this space: 1) build a half wall (free since we already have framing wood, drywall, and spackle but it would have taken more time, blocked more light from the windows, and make moving furniture up and down the stairs difficult), 2) install a wood railing (at least $300 for the cheapest kind of wood and would have involved staining or painting), 3) install a metal railing similar to our old one but one "up to code" ($80 and just as sturdy as a wood railing). So, we obviously went with option 3. Jesse is using the posts we already had and cut the carpet out where he screwed them in so they could be screwed directly into the sub floor, making the whole thing more secure. Plus, the bottom horizontal bar is much closer to the floor now:)

Jesse also hung Corban's bedroom door, cut the hole for the knob, and installed the hardware. Now we just need to prime and paint the door jam and hang the door trim on both sides.

The first thing Jesse worked on during Weeks 8 & 9 was relaying the carpet in Corban's room. So, here it is- I think it turned out great! Also, if you can see in the top right corner of this picture, there is a brown and light blue night stand. That was one of my big painting projects over the last couple of weeks and I'm really pleased with the way it turned out. It's for the nursery (same color light blue walls in there and I'm going to hang brown curtains, too, so it should match nicely).