Free carpet...sort of.

Griffin really is much happier than this pouty face would indicate

For anyone who has been to my home, you'll probably remember the carpet in our basement. It's disgusting. Purchasing a home that was repossessed has its risks, and for us the risk was nasty carpet in the basement. Landon and I have been talking about frugal ways to re-vamp that basement ever since we moved in, but inspiration struck back in August when we were visiting my family. My mom told me about this calico-carpet thing that her mother had done a few times when my mom was a kid. It sounded fun and interesting, but best of all: it was cheap. The idea is basically to take carpet remnants and cut them into squares then create a patchwork carpet using carpet glue. When I describe it like that, it sounds like a really straightforward one-day job. Not so.

We spent several weekends searching for just the right free carpet, endured several carpet salesmen looking at us like we were crazy, spent several more weekends tracing and cutting carpet into squares, and then a few days gluing it all onto our existing carpet. Then it took me a while (I am embarrassed to admit how long) to muster the determination to finish off all of the little oddly-shaped pieces around the edge of the room.

So now, after more than a month of work, I am happy to debut the finished carpet here on the blog. I am really proud of how this turned out. And I am even happier with the price. If anyone wants to do this type of thing my recommendation is to give yourself a month of work time, and buy the biggest tub of carpet glue available (it's worth it, if only to save yourself four different trips to Home Depot).