It's been a crazy week in Lake Woebegone!

I've been under the gun, working at my job. I have to say this for working out of my home--I get a whole lot more done than when I worked in the office.  Not so many distractions from co-workers, and I can work whenever I like, and I do!  That's the problem--Where's the off switch?  At any rate, I'm moving along very well on my schedule to complete the January and February work before Feb 14 when I fly out to spend a week in Maine with Tessa and Lily.  If I don't get it all done, I'll have to drag a laptop and files with me, and I really don't want to do that, if you know what I mean.

Since Friday, I've been serenaded with the sounds of hammers and saws coming out of the basement. Don and his cousin are hard at work putting in a new laminate floor in the finished part down there, and I couldn't be happier.  We had the nastiest, stinkiest, oldest green carpet down there!  It was ugly and horrible and it made the entire house smell musty. In my sewing room, I thought I'd be able to simply vacuum up the threads as I worked in there, but the damn carpet was like velcro--everything stuck to it!  No, vacuuming didn't work so one day I went on my hands and knees and used a sticky roller to get the threads up, and that didn't work either! I think it was at that point I gave up and decided we couldn't wait any longer to put in the new floor.

Don spend a few days last week taking out the carpet and pad  and as soon as it was out of the house, I could notice the difference in the smell of the house. And the guys began laying the new floor on Friday and hope to finish it today.  I told them they had to get it finished because tonight I commandeer the TV to watch Downton Abbey, so if they want to watch their football games, they had to get the TV hooked up in the basement!  And that's the way it's going to be!

I decided to take a couple of pix to share with you. This is the basement of a large ranch style house, so it's long and narrow.  These first two pix show the floor from each end of the basement--I told Don we should put the Wii at one end and the kids could use the basement as a bowling alley!

This is the view from the other end of the basement with all the furniture shoved to the side where the floor was put down yesterday.  The basement is very dark and poorly lit so we're hoping this light colored floor followed by some fresh paint next spring will help lighten things up.  We both agree that we want a warm color on the walls and I'm leaning toward an orangey-rose color, maybe a pale orangey-coral, but I have to pick the right time to approach Don with this idea since he spends more time down there than I do.  We'll see what he thinks.

And this is the pic of my sewing room which is one end of the long rectangular basement. Don and Wayne put some of the furniture back yesterday and I'll get down there later today to bring out all my stuff so I can get a little stitching done today.  It's been a full week since I've had my machine available to me and let me tell you, I'm Jonesin' to put my foot on the pedal again!  I know for sure I'll be painting this part of the basement that coral color I like!  Maybe a darker color below the chair rail.  We'll see.

Before I do anything on my sewing room, I have to take the time today to take down the Christmas tree and the few decorations I'd put up.  We kept it simple this year since we had no one coming here for the holiday.  I like it just being simple and not going overboard as we've been known to do in the past!  :) Normally, I take everything down after the 6th of Jan but with the pressure to keep working on my reports, I've let it slide. Today, I have no work on my plate so down comes the tree!