For Better or For Worse...

We closed today, hooray! After a trying 90-day process, we finally were able to sign (and sign and sign) the papers on our new (old) house today. Then, even though technically we don't get the keys till tomorrow, we got down and dirty at the house getting the remodel started (we have the code for the lockbox). I thought it would be fun to post some pics of the in-between stage. Here is David atop the pile of carpet and other junk he tore out of all the bedrooms and off the stairs.
We were pleasantly surprised to find that there were indeed hardwood floors under the carpet in the master bedroom. The only hitch is that there are two different sections of wood separated by a line of 2x4's where there used to be a wall before. We were already planning to take part of the room to make a master bath and closet. Now the question is this:
Do we...
1. Divide the room at the line where the old wall used to be, creating a space for a large bathroom and nice-sized closet and enabling us to use and refinish the existing hardwood floors, but cutting the size of the bedroom significantly...OR...
2. Go with the original plan of a smaller bathroom/closet space in order to preserve a larger bedroom space, making refinishing the hardwood floors a non-option??? I would love any opinions on the matter--I am really torn! I know it wouldn't bother ME to have a smaller bedroom and a nice large bathroom, but for resale value down the line...I don't know--what do you think?

This wall used to have an interesting display of wood with a large half-circle mirror. David ripped it all off tonight and decided to also take out the partial wall they had filled in above some of the upper stairs.

Under all of the floors upstairs we found more hardwood floors--score! BUT, unfortunately, they all have paint on them; some are worse than others. We are going to attempt to use paint stripper and then sand and refinish up here as well (as David's dad suggested--thanks, Pa!), but we'll have to see how it goes--has anyone done this? Any advice?

As you can see, the floor in the hallway upstairs was painted completely white.

The playroom floor looks as though someone decided to paint the floor blue but didn't want to bother moving the bed, which was in the middle of the floor--weird...

The floor in Olivia's room is splattered a lot, but it doesn't have an actual coating of paint.

Aubrey's room had the least paint spots--just a TON of dirt under all that carpet, pad, and old old old linoleum.

We were planning on holding off on the back bedroom since it had that column right in the middle of the room which we wanted to take out, but which would be just one more project on top of everything else...David couldn't wait, so now there is the exposed pipe thing that used to vent the boiler heater and now is just used as a vent for the water heater, and around it there is a square hole in the floor leading all the way to the basement. I'm excited to get it all done, but I don't know how we'll ever have enough time...guess we'll just see how it goes. However, I do know that the kids are definitely not stepping foot in this house for a while--there are hazards everywhere!

Almost everything so far was David's handiwork--he also cleaned out literally a truckload of junk from the basement. My big accomplishments included taking shelves off the walls and cabinet doors off the cabinets in the kitchen. WOW--as usual when working with David, I felt inefficient--but then, who doesn't?

Here I am with my trusty screwgun--I felt so handy :)

Well, there we have it! Or progress on DAY ONE--my goal is to keep track of the whole project via blog, and then hopefully later on I can convert our blog posts into a little family journal/book--has anyone done this? I've heard about it but don't know much. Let me know...