So here is the reason I have not posted for a while. One of the advantages (speaking optimistically) of being out of work for the last five months has been the stack of remodeling projects I have knocked off the list. One of the biggest was the living room. 1970s shag carpet, dingy white walls, and a popcorn-covered cathedral ceiling. We rented scaffolding for a week (12 feet to the peak of the living room and 15 feet in the stairwell to the lower walk out basement) and one of those articulating ladders (Damn, those things are HEAVY) and proceeded to remove the popcorn texture, then primer and paint the walls and ceiling. After that was done, we ripped up the ugly green carpeting (which with the water and pasty popcorn texture weighed in at 400 pounds when we took it to the dump) and underlayment. Took a day for the subflooring and paint to dry, during which time I walked the plywood subflooring and drove deck screws into the squeaking sections where the 30 year old nails were working loose and no longer held the subflooring firmly to the joists. Next, 52 rows of bamboo tongue and groove flooring went down with predrilling for ring nails every five rows in addition to the glue attaching the bamboo to the subflooring. I had installed bamboo (glued, but not nailed) in the hallway to the upstairs bedrooms last year, so I pulled up those pieces at the living room end and set a staggered sawtooth pattern at a 90 degree angle to tie the two sections together (you can see the same pattern in the landing on the stairwell). We put up a faux beam at the "bow of the ship" as we call the end of the room with the floor to ceiling windows using a 1x6 popular board that was stained to match the existing support beam. We shimmed it to the wall and countersank screws into the actual beam, buried under the wall board (it was too messy to actually pull off the wallboard to expose the real support beam), then used a plug cutter on some of the scrap lumber to cover the screw heads. You have to be right on top of the "beam" and actually looking for the plugs to see them. Looks like an actual support beam. We also pulled the ugly carpeting off of the stars and attached bamboo to the steps. Down the road, we are planning on putting tile on the face of the steps to tie them into the entryway (also a future project) and the stone tile in the walkway in the basement. Finally, the entryway wall was painted a contrast (medium green) as an accent to the rest of the room. The ugly metal railing was trimmed down (the "L" shape is now a single section protecting anyone (or dog) from falling into the stairwell), the fancy filigree cut out of the vertical rails leaving a simple rail, which was painted black. I'm currently building a wood hand rail to fit over the metal hand rail and it will be stained to match the bamboo flooring (a yellow oak stain seems to produce a color close to the bamboo on either an oak, poplar, or hemlock material). I hope to finish those hand rails this week (still have to find a real job after all). Finally, the old white spotlight that did little more than throw light on the painting over the fireplace was replaced with a three light track system which can light up the entire room. It still amazes us the transformation of the room. I still have some little touch ups (I need to install the transitions between the rooms, put in a couple of small pieces of moulding, make a transition cover for where the railing bolts into the subfloor, etc. in addition to finishing the handrails. We basically did this in about 10-12 days as we had the youngest graduating from High School and wanted to have the floor done prior to the party. T4V&C