When I bought this house in 2009, it was overwhelmingly beige. Beige walls, beige carpet, beige, beige, beige. I’m not a massive fan of beige and neither is the cat. She made her displeasure known by liberally urinating on the carpet when she arrived, which any cat owner knows is a nightmare to get out. Add to that an attack by silverfish and the beige carpet downstairs had to go. As part of its removal plan I switched from free-standing bookcases to shelves last year, and this month I finally got around to having someone come around to fit a nice new wooden floor.

It only took a couple of days (though they are coming back for a couple of hours to fix a couple of things on Wednesday) and it was a lot less dust than sanding the floorboards will have been. It also gave me the opportunity to get a couple of new rugs, and have a bit of a sort out.

So my living room went from

to

The dining room went from

to

and the hallway from

to

Lots more photos of before, during and after here: