Pictures of the progress

My dad kindly took some better photos and emailed them to me (as he said, "Low res is better than NO res.").

This is the living room, walls painted Valspar's Applesauce Cake (a warm, honey-wheat with a touch of green), and floor partly sanded. The inner workings of the grand piano are currently removed while Husband is finishing the floor with an orbital sander. I took my turn with the orbital sander (I can't resist power tools), and called it my resistance training for the day. All that stuff on the rocks is supplies and will be gone soon.

In order to take care of the living room floor, all the living room furniture except the piano was moved into the dining room. It's a little tight at the moment. How I wish I had cleaned off the dining room table before this picture was taken. No one wants to see the corn that Child Six dumped over during lunch. And all the other stuff, of course, which is stuff I have already taken to the food storage room, thank you very much.

The new picture Husband found at IKEA. It has all the colors we're putting into the new color scheme. I love the subject: sort of Tree of Life. Sure, it's a mass-produced picture. When we have the money, I'm going to buy some real original art. I already have an artist in mind.

Remember the "before" picture of the coat closet? Here's the "after." Now just the school backpacks are on the floor. And the vacuum. And somebody's workbook. Sigh. The work never ends. The mittens, hats and scarves are all thrown into the top of the closet. I'm still working on that.

This is the new shoe rack. We have finally corralled the (what seem like) hundreds of shoes that have been stacked on the floor. Everyone has his or her own basket. It's actually part of an IKEA wardrobe system with the Komplement baskets inserted. Can you tell where we shopped recently?

Update: The living room floor now has two coats of stain and is drying, drying, drying. Maybe it will dry sometime this year.