I'm Not Happy...

Once upon a time there was a living room. It wasn't pretty, but it did have some pretty furniture. This is what is looked like, from the bay window toward the dining room.

I was very tired of the pimply stucco ceiling, and it was impossible to clean, or even to dust. And I hated the plain wood trim and decades-old wallpaper. So I asked for a new room. Now, our house is over a hundred years old. Gary has stripped most of the other rooms and put up sheetrock, but never this one. And so we begin. First, Gary took down the wall behind the fireplace. Then he started chipping that awful stucco off the ceiling.

Kaylee peeks in and says "Uh-oh, Grampy!" She can't imagine what I will say when I see the mess! As you can see, we took up the carpeting previously. I am hoping for a new laminate floor, maybe in a cherry color. As Gary works on the ceiling, our son Jed diligently removes a hundred years worth of wallpapers (the last 30 years of wallpaper were my choices, interesting to see what lies beneath them...) and then the horsehair plaster beneath. We found a fish hook in the wall. It looked hand made, big and scary and very very old.

Can you see the plaster dust in the air? We put a plastic tarp over the door to try to contain the dust, but it didn't help a lot... There is plaster dust EVERYWHERE in the whole house, just look!
Soon all the walls and the ceiling are stripped and this is what we have now. That fan? It is going. Buh-bye. I wish I could say goodbye to that ugly airvent too, but it is the only way we get any heat in our bedroom above. It is cold up there, even with layers of quilts.
Will you just look at that floor? It took them another day to sweep up the plaster and bag it to take to the dump, then we had to pay $75 for them to take it off our hands. Man, we could have used that money for sheetrock!

Gary took this one from up on the ladder. Paper and plaster and dust, oh my!

So now the living room furniture is in the dining room:

The dining room furniture is in the kitchen, and the old couch and big screen TV are in my quilting studio! I don't have room to move or even turn around. I keep telling Gary this is what we would feel like if we had a trailer in Florida for the winter, we are practicing!

The only way I have found to keep my sanity is to knit like a fiend. So May I present my finished project, THE DRACULA'S BRIDE SHAWL!!!

Here is a closer look:

And closer still:

Pattern designed by Goddess Knits, I used Jaggerspun Zephyr wool/silk yarn and size 4 bamboo needles. It took me 6 months to knit this shawl. I'd say it was worth it. I'm feeling happier now.