Dining/living room 2.0

Oh look. Yet more shag carpet in the dining room. Why????

So we've got one of those long dining/living room combos. I'm sorry these are Christmas time photos. I'm also sorry I'm using a 1980's dining set. But we sold my dining room table and chairs with our last house. But I do have the most wonderful parents in the entire world and they bought a new set and let us "borrow" this set. The room was dark and dingy. My least favorite space in the house. 

So we had this cat, whom we loved dearly (key word is "had"). This amazing cat developed diabetes and a forte for using this room as an extra litter box. Oh joy. Well it's not sanitary for a family to live in a house that smells of diabetic male cat urine. And it's also next to impossible to control blood sugars in a cat. And animals aren't made to be pin cushions.  We had a tough choice to make. I never liked the carpet anyhow. He just happened to assist in ripping this room apart a little sooner than planned.  

So. Time to decide on flooring, because it'll never be carpet. I love hard wood. But I also love our pool, our pets and our kids more. Enter wood-like porcelain tile. Super duper durable. Properly laid, grouted and sealed, this stuff will hold up against wet little feet, dogs nails, millions of legos, and high heals. And we chose an awesome product from all places, Lowes. And this is much wider and longer than most wood-like tiles that I've seen. I also like the distressed look for my "country" feel. 

So, ripping out carpet is easy. Laying tile... Way hard. Way way way hard. I hate it. REALLY REALLY hate it. We also bought enough tile to tile the entire 1st floor of the house all at one time. Eventually as we redo the rest of the main floor, we'll have the same tile on hand to finish it all off. But in the mean time, I've got two pallets sitting in my parents barn. And I'm gonna need a really long break before the next tiling project. 

We still knocked out the tile part in a weekend. Grouted and sealed the next weekend. Of course I needed more board and batten to dress long room up a little.  We left the threshold tiles loose in order to transition it all seamlessly into the kitchen and foyer. 

We painted the bookcases and "built it in." Obtained a new custom farm table and I've recently replaced the TV stand-turned buffet with a craiglist Willet hutch I found. Still undecided on how I'll refinish it or if I'll just leave it the same. Some apothecary jars and knick-knacks to finish it all off. 

We also used a carpet scrap for an area rug, so I can't get too upset when the kids or animals destroy it. 

So now I don't spend my evening on my hands and knees trying to get the smell of cat urine out of nasty shag carpet. We also went to the humane society and adopted a new little kitty. Miss Lulu. And she loves using the actual litter box. 

We never used this room/s before, now I never want leave it.