In real life…

…I am in the process of relocating.  As some of you may recall, I bought a house in Pennsylvania.  It was a foreclosed property and I got it at a steep discount.  This past week, I started getting it ready for occupancy.  It needs a bit of work, especially in the basement where there is a water issue that needs to be addressed.  There are also some landscaping issues and code violations that need to be fixed so we won’t be moving in for awhile yet.

But the best part of cleaning up this house has to be pulling the carpets up.  I’d like to thank the elderly ladies who like wall to wall carpeting.  Here’s the before shot of the living room:

Living room with manky old carpet

 

And here is the living room after a couple hours of RD with a utility knife:

Living room minus manky carpet

 

That drop dead gorgeous hardwood floor has been lovingly protected for 60 years from dogs and kids by successive applications of dingy beige carpet.  I couldn’t afford a floor as beautiful as this.  It’s a rich dark brown with a lovely patina.  It just needs a good cleaning but not too much refinishing action.  Even the seams between the planks are perfect.

Buying this house was a bit like going to a basket auction and not knowing exactly what I was getting.  The floors were a nice surprise and they run throughout the house.  Combine that with the arched doorways and built-in hutches and niches and I would say I scored a bahgain.