Downstairs Transformation

It is hard to describe how lame our basement/downstairs looked two weeks ago.  The carpet was old and gross in the main area and older and grosser in the downstairs bedroom that functions as my office.  While we had cleared a lot of items out and put them into storage, it was... not good.  And the carpet smelled somewhat moldy due to the insane flooding we had in Northfield in 2010.  This is not to mention that the walls were best described as "poorly painted dingy grey white." 

And did I mention that it was full of STUFF?

It was full of stuff.

Here's what the downstairs looked like before we started working on it:

Here's what it looks like now:

I took several photos of my office, first when it was full of STUFF:

Then when it was empty, so that you could see the horrendous and dirty pink carpet, as well as the bizarre "texture painting" on the walls.  I'd like to know what kind of drugs the people who did this to this room were on so that I can agitate for them to be made illegal.

SERIOUSLY, WHO DOES THIS TO A WALL???

Austin and Alex and I primed over the weird texture painting, and then I left for three days for work in Rochester.  I came home and the carpet had been replaced, the walls had been painted a light peach (by Austin), and my office was set up in such a way that all the extraneous stuff was in the closets.  (Of course much of it is in our storage unit now, too...)

My desk is still out, complete with computer, printer, and a jigsaw puzzle I'm working on (as well as the usual odds and ends that can be cleared away for a showing), but... wow, this is a whole different room now.  Check it out:

Aside from how great (and unfamiliar) the downstairs of our house now looks, we also put an air exchanger into our house last week.  We've had a lot of condensation on windows in the past and just too much humidity in the house.  It was starting to be a problem, so we decided, what the heck, let's spend nearly two thousand more dollars on this house.  The difference is noticeable; there is no condensation on any window anymore and we don't have a dehumidifier running anymore (which means that I can plug in my special lamp for cross stitching and handwork!). 

So this is all good.  It means that even if our house doesn't sell, our house is a lot nicer than it was.  It doesn't solve the two problems that make us need to sell it, though; 1. we have too much stuff for it (now we are paying for it to stay in storage, UGH) and 2. our kids need separate bedrooms.  If we get desperate we can move Alex downstairs into my office, but the Too Much Stuff Problem isn't as easy...