From Carpet to Foam Tiles

Life has been moving really quickly for us in the Cirlot household in the past month.  We've been to Birmingham to visit Audrie and meet her gracious host family.  We've met with church planters to learn how to do what we are doing now most wisely.  We have built several websites and logos for companies local and beyond.  We are quickly nearing the end of Phase 1 of the Acts29 assessment.  Bryan has taught a Dnow,  has had a guys retreat with old friends, and I have taught a VBS class.  Abby has had another positive doctor's appointment from her allergy doctor who just affirmed that our carpet and upholstered furniture has to go soon, and that the changes we are making are making a big difference with her dust mite allergy.  Here's where we are.  

I have been praying that God would provide us with the flooring we need to get rid of our carpet.  This weekend, I found a lot of foam play mat tiles on Craigslist for $30.  We had already bought several packs before to keep over the center of her playroom floor.  The extra tiles I picked up yesterday were EXACTLY the same type we had already bought and EXACTLY the number we needed to rip up the carpet and completely cover the floors.  Isn't God good?

The old gross carpet we had to start with minus the baseboards.

No wonder Abby is sick all of the time.  It is gross when you pull up carpet!  It smelled funky too.

10 hours later... Flooring is complete! Abby saw it for the first time this morning and said, "WOW!"

Laundry Room Redo & Turning Our House Into a Library

Here are the photos of the latest Cirlot family projects.

We had a problem with our dryer last night that ended up being a laundry room remodel.  I thought you would enjoy seeing the progression of how our closet/laundry room has changed since we moved in a few years ago.

This is our master bedroom's closet before we moved in.  It was huge, but we needed a space for our washer and dryer.

With help from Bryan's dad and our friend JJ, Bryan made electrical and plumbing changes, tiled the floor, built a false wall, added closet doors, and built a wooden half-wall to enclose the utility cords, plumbing, and etc.

Here's our finished project after last night. Bryan had to redo the half-wall and redid it with beadboard.  We added shelving (love having scrap wood in our shop!), and we used leftover paint from another project to make the walls fun! 

Now, I am finally organized in here and all of our cleaning stuff is out of Abby's reach.

Here it is zoomed out, so you can see how our closet is now lined with bookcases for Bryan's library.  We used to have a double-sided closet, but about a month before Bryan resigned, the left side fell.  It turns out to be providence.  We both just got rid of half of our wardrobe and joined it together on the right side.  Who really wears that many outfits anyhow?

Abby and Aslan decided to model in this one.  You can see how all of the bookshelves are maxed out!

We moved a desk into the master bedroom, so it could be a quieter place to study.  We added a short bookshelf on this side too.  

More Bookshelves in the Living Room/Dining Room area.  I do like how colorful they are!

Abby's makeshift bookcase and reading area.  You can see her artwork displayed above with repurposed table mats.

So, that's it for now.  More projects are always being cooked up, so I'm sure you will see something new soon!

Master Bedroom Remodel

Here is a late post about our Master Bedroom that we remodeled last weekend. Here's what it looked like around Christmas time.

Master Bedroom Before:

Master Bedroom View #2 Before:

Here's the skinny on the Master Bedroom. We only bought paint, a few dollars worth of sheets at the thrift store that I turned into curtains, a few dollars worth of thrift store pillows and pillowcases, a $2 thrift store table runner, and a $20 clearance rug at Lowe's. Everything else we already had and just moved into this room for decor or furniture. It looks like a completely different room. I love how relaxing and tropical it is! I've wanted a blue bedroom since middle school, so I am so glad that Bryan agreed to let us do this. Yay! God is so good to give us not only what we need but often what we want as well. Bryan and I had so much fun working on this project together. I love my hubby!

Master Bedroom After:

Master Bedroom View #2 After:

Master Bedroom View #3 After:

Guest Bedroom Remodel

After owning our home for a little over 3 years, we finally tackled our guest bedroom. It had a terrible paint job and absolutely no character. This is the only photo I could find of it. I was so embarrassed of it before the redo that I haven't really taken photos of it, and I forgot to take pics before we started painting.

Guest Bedroom Before (This photo makes it look deceptively better than it actually was):

The painting begins with everything piled in the center of the room.

Our fantastic head painter.


Here's the scoop. We simply rearranged things throughout the house and used what we already had to decorate. We found the nice wooden headboard and footboard beside a trashcan in our neighborhood. We already had hand-me-down newlywed furniture that was really worn. We repainted everything, and it looks brand new. Everyone else's junk just became our treasure. We already had artwork that I had made throughout the years framed in a way that matched the freshly painted furniture perfectly. Ta-dah! Here is our cheap remodel. The only thing we paid for was paint. Isn't God good?

After: Guest Bedroom