Sudden even greater respect for design bloggers and DIYers the world over.

Ahhhh. So, we have finally pretty much finished our first major project in the house. Yes we started this project before we moved in and yes we've lived here for five weeks.

Give us a break - we have jobs and it's the playoffs.

Anyway, we (I say 'we' but really I did very little of the back-breaking work because I'm a lady wimp) laid tile throughout the laundry room, powder room and short hallway between the garage and the family room.

Tangent - one of the things I love about our house is that the laundry room is not a hallway between the garage and the rest of the house. I hate that! I also hate when the laundry room is actually a laundry slash bathroom. That is just gross. No slashy rooms allowed here unless it's the kitchen/dining room or the family room/home theater. yep, those would be the two acceptable slashies.

Mark scraping the floor and making a comely face. I'm standing in the family room taking this picture. that door leads out to the garage. You can see some of our gorgeous linoleum by Mark's leg.

The area had some bad linoleum that was peeling and looked dirty. Probably because it was dirty. So Mark and his friend Mike ripped it out.

Then they scraped the adhesive off the cement floor.

The scraping was a multi-day process that included some chemicals. I decided to stay far away.

Then there was self leveling.

Then there was tiling. Also a multi-day process. I also painted the walls in the process.

Well, the past two days we have laid quarter-round trim around the baseboards to hid the tile edges (yeah, we know you're supposed to take the baseboards off before you tile...) and painted all the trim a nice glossy white.

Here's what we have now!

This picture was taken from where Mark was sitting in the first picture. To the left of where I'm standing is the door to the powder room, which will one day be cute and I will show it to you then.

A little anticlimactic? I know. This is why I have even more respect for design bloggers and DIYers. If I were a design blogger, the room would be merchandised with pretty shelves over the dryer and a sign that says "laundry" on weather-worn barn wood and beautiful basket-style hampers for whites, colors and towels at the end of the room. A sassy roman shade would grace the window and let's be honest, it would probably have crown molding.

But I'm a real person and I don't have crown molding in my laundry room.

Sorry!

But I do kind of want the other stuff I mentioned above. All in time.