It Started with a Rug!!!

The rug store in Turkey!


Well actually, it started when our friends, Rulon and Nancy invited us on a Mediterranean Cruise last year. When the ship arrived in Turkey, we were taken to this amazing 6 or 7 story rug store; store seems like an understatement. The salesmen wine you and dine you (or in our case, apple juice you and dine you), show you the rugs in the colors and styles you are interested in, share the history of the hand made rugs and then the bartering begins! That's when I walk out! I wasn't even aware rug shopping was on our agenda. I did know however, that Dennis has always had a passion for oriental rugs, since he was raised in a home with hardwood floors and rugs everywhere. So, we bought a beautiful rug, which they told us they would have it delivered to our home. I was surprised to see that they actually delivered our new rug, in person, to our home in Utah! Now that's service! About six months later, they showed up at our home again with a moving truck full of, what else, more rugs. While I was tending to grandchildren in the other room, Dennis purchased another rug!!! This is a very frugal man I am married to, so it surprised me to no end!!

That one event spawned a remodel in our living and dining room, and our Master Bathroom. I had been bugging Dennis to raise our Living Room floor to be level with our Dining room floor for years now. When we built our home in the 90's, it was vogue to have a sunken living room! What were we thinking!? It doesn't really work when you are trying to fit an ever growing family in your dining room to eat.----- Ok, long story short, I flooded the upstairs during the remodel (on accident!! REALLY!!) making it necessary to re-carpet and repaint pretty much the entire main floor, as well as the upstairs now. I swear, it would of been easier to just build a new home. Dennis doesn't agree, and he probably would know, but it has been months and months and months of ripping off, tearing down, re-sheetrocking, repainting and lots of lots of sanding etc. etc. We are almost to the end of our journey. I still need to make window treatments for the Living Room and Dining Room and we are still waiting for the Master Tub to be repaired, but we are definitely in a livable state again!

That cruise ended up being a lot more expensive that we ever imagined! One of the reasons we went, besides being with our dear friends, the Hornes, was because it was such a good deal!! Ha Ha! on us!