I’m reading Patsy Clairmont’s book Stained Glass Hearts and after each chapter she has art/music to go with the section. The first chapter talked about mosaics, and that reminded me that I’ve been wanting to make my very own mosaic…out of my photographs! It’s been something that I’ve wanted to do for awhile but since it’s not something that you can just whip out in a few minutes it’s been on ‘hold.’

So I got motivated and this morning I figured out how to make one and I’m soooo excited! (And yes you can pay companies to do all the hard work for you BUT I decided to go the true artistic route and make it myself in Photoshop) 🙂

While I do like it a lot, it was a bit time consuming so I’m not sure that it’s something I’d make on a regular basis 🙂

The floors are finished, the house is put together and is squeaky clean, it was a good day! Sure they are faux tile but they are fabulous to me because it’s much better than the ‘normal’ for military housing 🙂

Yesterday morning they arrived to put in the new floors. Remember how just the day before they were trying to cancel and telling me that they did have one guy but he was slow…? Well not only 1 guy showed up but 3 of them, so why were they trying to reschedule us?! More about that later…

They arrive at 8 am and of course housing maintenance did not show up like they were supposed to to unhook and move the stove. Mr. B calls them and they send someone over, they’ve only known about this since Monday but once again not surprised. The floor guys get to work and they are completely done by 11 am! I found this amusing since on Monday the floor lady told me it would be 1 guy and he would be done around 2 pm. Then after the attempt to reschedule it’s 3 guys who are done in less than 3 hours….why you ask? Turns out they had to go install carpet in the house of an incoming ‘big wig’ and it suddenly dawns on me why the lady was trying to reschedule us….sigh you gotta love politics. Thankfully it all worked out and better than expected, which is always a plus!

I love the new floors, they really make the house feel more welcoming but the thing I love most is that they are CLEAN. No more sad gunky vinyl caked in the corners and cracks with 10+ years of scum that I’ve been desperately been trying to remove over the past year. Not only are the floors clean but we also took the opportunity of everything being moved to do a major deep clean. Every surface has been magic erased, nooks & crannies cleaned, baseboards scrubbed, you name it it was done!

Here’s some pictures:

Down the hallway

Faux tiles, so much better than our old stuff!

My one complaint…they put the doors back on…or did they?! I guess if the only major issue was having to hammer in the doors than we’re doing good ;p

Mac checking out the dining room

Carpets back down the hall

Furniture moved back into place

Kitchen

The only other thing that I wondered about…and Mr. B asked about was them not removing the old vinyl. I swear I’ve seen them carrying out the old stuff from the other houses (they’ve been re-doing all the houses as people move out) but that was not the case for us. Not sure if it was a time issue so they could get to the ‘big wigs’ house or really ‘normal.’ Seems kinda gross to me as this was the floor under the stove, a cabinet that Mr. B removed, and the fridge:

Not a pretty picture!

So they apparently scrapped as much stuff off as they could and then put the new stuff over…I guess we’ve never know if we hadn’t been here, but still seems creepy to me!

Yesterday I spent the majority of the day moving all the stuff off the vinyl downstairs. At first it doesn’t seem like a lot but then when you factor in that all of the downstairs is vinyl except the living room it sure adds up fast!

So after spending all day cleaning out closets, the pantry, removing coat racks, shelving, ect I get a call at 2 pm from the company wanting to reschedule to next Tues?! I was shocked since they had planned this on Monday. Once I explained that I had already moved almost all of our stuff and that we were hosting small group on Sun she said they would still come….so why were they trying to reschedule anyways?!

Then last night Mr. B did the heavy lifting moving the fridge, washer/dryer, and the dining room table. I helped with one arm and Boo helped with one arm moving the dining room table, LOL. Why was I one-armed you ask?! Apparently I have given myself carpal tunnel like symptoms after cutting all those crazy crayons for the crayon monogram the other day, ugh! My hand was occasionally tingling and going numb on me, super fun stuff.

Here’s what the house looked like last night:

Living room view 1

Living room view 2, and yes that is our fridge in the living room!

Used to be a dining room table here, Mr. B hadn’t moved the dryer yet

Bye Bye ugly nasty vinyl!