Heart failed at the top of the staircase

...instead of in the back of a taxi.

Those of you keeping up with Heidi's blog have seen the transformation of our TV/family room from a 70s hell with dark wood paneling and stained carpet to a fabulously painted room with sealed hardwood floors. The sealing has been a tricky in this house of many cats. It has pretty much required us to seal the cats in different parts of the house. The three young men - Walter, Bingley and Sidney got the basement. We sealed the cat door at the top of the steps so as to prevent their escape onto the sticky floor above, but this did not stop one determined Walter from nearly clawing through the door in an attempt to escape his prison.

Between plaintive meows, we heard frantic scratching and clawing at the door, desperately trying to remove the cat door as if THE most exciting thing in the world was happening on the other side. Seriously, it sounded like he was going to drop dead from heart failure in the next minute if we didn't let him out.

I am happy to report that he is still alive, ready to annoy and slobber another day.

It's been a really good remodel of the room. It's been difficult, but I think we're really going to like it once we're all done. And unbelievably, it has not been all that expensive. It helped immensely that we didn't have to rent a floor sander (although when we do the floors in the back bedroom, there is no doubt in my mind that we will be renting it for that job.) We only have several more coats of polyurethane to put on the floor, a job that is proving to be more difficult with each subsequent coat because it's harder and harder to tell where you've already been and where you have yet to go.

But it's very satisfying because it's something we've wanted to do since the day we moved in, and it is finally happening. So YAY for that.