Ugly Carpet Contest

In March of 2009, I opened the newspaper and saw a promotion for an Ugly Carpet Contest.  The winner would receive $2,500 worth of carpet from a national carpet store.  Normally I would have skimmed right through it, but we had happened to just buy a house containing some of the ugliest carpet I had ever seen.  The contest was being put on by a local website/blog.  Now at the time, I didn't even know what a blog was.  I simply knew we had ugly carpet and wanted to win the contest.

I entered my picture and titled my entry "Bowling Alley or Bedroom".  You see, the original owner of this house also owned a bowling alley.  At one point, he had some carpet laid in his bowling alley and thought it would be great idea to use the extra carpet in one of the bedrooms of his home.

You had to include a description of the photo and I think mine went something like this:

"This look might have scored a strike in the 1950s, but now it belongs in the gutter."

Pretty clever, right? Well, I thought so and so did the judges.  We made it to the 10 finalist.  After that, it was up to the public to vote for their favorite. This is when Facebook comes in handy.  I begged, pleaded, demanded, kindly requested that my facebook friends vote for me.  My husband was quite skeptical that this whole thing would pan out.  You would think after 13 years, he would know me well enough to realize that when I set out to do something, I take it very seriously.  Winning this contest became my mission for the next week.  I was so excited when we got the call that we had won!  I hadn't won anything since I won a tiny black and white television in kindergarten (which was a pretty big deal back in the day).

The newspaper came and took before pictures of the carpet and then when the remodel was completed, they came back and took some after pictures.  They ended up doing a story about the whole house remodel and ran it on the front page of the Home and Style section.  My kids thought they were famous.

Sorry for the rambling, but just showing before and after pictures wasn't going to do this post justice.  You really needed the story behind "The Ugly Carpet".

Here's is the room with the ugly carpet.

And here is the room without the ugly carpet (and the ugly walls and ugly furniture)

This room was very inexpensive to put together.  I found the beds at a local antique store.  They were marked $500 for both and I was prepared to pay $400.  I kindly asked what price they would accept and the lady said $220 (FOR BOTH!).  I paid for them as fast as I could and loaded them up.   The dresser in between the beds belonged to my great-grandmother and the curtains were only $15 a pair from IKEA.

I got the hanging book racks on the side of their beds at an outdoor antique show (only $8 each).  They were originally used on the backs of church pews to hold the hymnals.

This picture shows the ceiling color.  I wanted to have all the ceilings in the house painted a color,
but I chickened out and only ended up doing it in the bedrooms.
Still considering painting the ceiling in the dining room a light blue/green/gray color.
I'll keep you posted.

I am linking to:
Houseography

Finally got everyone healthy and back to school today.  Looking forward to a great weekend.
My family is coming up to help celebrate my birthday and my two older kids are in the school
Talent Show on Saturday night.  My daughter is doing a dance with two friends and my son is
singing a solo.  Should be interesting.  I think my husband and I are more nervous than they are.
I'll try to post a short video next week. 

Categories: Before and After