Unexpected hiccups with happy endings

So I know in my last post I hinted a second project soon to be complete that would be added to the living room and I promise it is still coming, but not quite yet.  I have this loose idea of a timeline in my head as to when and what I will be doing project wise.  My order had a slight hiccup turned into a speed bump.

At work we have clients who are remodeling their condo.  They decided that they wanted to get new carpet and hardwoods throughout the condo.  Their existing carpet had to go.  I learned that they were looking to give it away.  My parents have a couple rooms in their downstairs that could benefit from some newer carpet.  Going off of the premise that this was yes used, but high quality carpet I told the contractor that we would take it.  It ended up being close to 100 SQ YDS of carpet.  More than enough for my parents to use and for Dave and I to use to recarpet our downstairs.  Such a great deal, right?  Ha.  Just wait.
Our existing carpet down stairs was a super thin, not comfortable, most likely commercial grade carpet with an oh so lovely brown, grey blue striped coloring.  See.

Last spring and fall we had some issues with rain coming through a crack in our foundation and getting the carpet wet.  We have since fixed that problem, but it left part of our carpet pulled up and fraying  a bit on the edge.  But really in general, before and despite the water issue, I just wanted new carpet.  Of course.

Through a turn of events, a family friend recommended a carpet installer that ended up being a new neighbor of ours!  Every thing seemed to be too good to be true: free, high end carpet and an installer who could give us a neighbor discount and install the following week!  Old carpet out and to the dump, new carpet laid and ready to be installed and then the call...

Have you looked at your carpet yet? 

Um, no.  (it came to us in huge rolls that need three grown men to lift so we hadn't looked at the carpet.)

You should see this before I go any further.  You don't want to pay me to install this.

Great.  Too good to be true.

Here it is the "good quality, high end carpet we got for free".  Thank goodness it was free.

All this to say, now instead of focusing on other projects first and possibly getting new carpet in a year or so, we get to buy brand new carpet now. Really, as unexpected as this was, I'm not complaining.  I always love new things that I get to pick out and make my house look the way I imagine it.  But still, this is a big speed bump in the project timeline.

We (really I, but I'll include Dave because he's the one who told me how much I could spend and that I could pick out whatever color I wanted so he's kind of involved) picked out new carpet.  We had to wait about a week for it to come in and it was installed on Sunday.  All in all, we lived for about two weeks with rolls of carpet in our carport, entry, hall and laid out throughout our downstairs, all waiting to go to the dump.  And now the new, clean carpet is installed and the used deceptively not clean carpet is gone!

The new carpet project rushed us into another project I didn't have down for at least a year or so, removing the ugly fake wood paneling that is around our downstairs.  This is being taken down in about a week and then the walls will be skim coated and then we'll paint and put all of our furniture back in!

So, now I have two promises:

1. I will soon be showing my other living room project I have been working on.
2. I will show pictures of the new downstairs once everything is done.  We also bought a new couch, so I will reveal that at the same time!

Here's a sneak peak at the new carpet.  Much better!

Here's to projects being put on hold, other projects jumping forward in the timeline and things getting updated!