OMG I have to decide today -- more house angst

When I bought this house, I loved the bones of the living room, but I hated the actual look of it. Brown carpeting, greyish brown cedar walls, and no lighting to speak of.

The carpet is gone and the wood floor is in process. Here's what it looks like so far, though the sun is too bright to get much of a picture with my phone camera:



I dealt with the walls back in 2007 by having them painted over, but the wood is still uneven and less than ideal.



My eventual plan was to remove the cedar plank walls, and put in proper dry wall and mud where they used to be. I didn't have a time frame for this, just "eventually." While Rick the floor guy and I were discussing baseboard options, I mentioned the eventual plan, and he asked if I was aware that he did this sort of work, too.

I wasn't. But I know that if I'm going to do it, now is the right time, while all the furniture is out and before the floor is finished. His quote was $1700, though I'm sure it'll come to $2000 or more by the time everything is done.

I guess I'm really just trying to talk myself into doing it. It'll be another week of having the living room unavailable, but I'll be much happier with the place when it's done.

At least, I think so.

Any advice, potential gotchas, or voices of experience would be greatly welcomed, since I have to make a decision on this by the end of the day.

The walls will come tumbling down

I told Rick to go ahead with the wall-removal project.

It's not entirely clear what's going to happen with all the cedar edging stuff, especially the part that separates the wall from the ceiling. If it gets taken down and then put back, things are simple. If it gets removed entirely, then the dry-wall prep calls for part of it to extend to the other wall, which in this case means the angled ceiling. Which means that the ceiling (which is textured) has to be repainted and retextured. Or something.

I think I'll dither about that tomorrow. Today has already used up several normal days' worth of dithering.

Ben & Jerry honor our new president

via morgandawn and the_shoshanna:

Straight from the Internets

In honor of our new president, Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream recently announced a new flavor called "Yes Pecan!"

Just so Dubya wouldn't feel left out, the good people of the innertubes have come up with some suggested flavors to honor #43. Here are a few of them:

Heck of a Job, Brownie!
imPeachmint
Abu Grape
Grammar Cracker S'moron
Guantanmallow
Chock'n Awe
Grape Depression
Cluster Fudge
Nut'n Accomplished
Iraqi Road
WireTap-ioca
Impeach Cobbler
Neocon-politan
RockyRoad to Fascism
The Reese's-cession
Cookie D'oh!
The Housing Crunch
Nougalar Proliferation
Death by Chocolate…and Torture
Freedom Vanilla Ice Cream
Chocolate Chip On My Shoulder
Credit Crunch
Mission Pecan-plished
Country Pumpkin
Chunky Monkey in Chief
George Bush Doesn't Care About Dark Chocolate
WMDelicious
Chocolate Chimp
Sundae Bloody Sundae
Caramel Preemptive Stripe