Living Room Plans

I’ve already mentioned that we’re redoing the living room floors because I’m a crazy person but we decided this would also be a good time to do some other things we’ve been talking about since we moved in.

Stain Beams. I love the faux beams on the ceiling but they’re a little too light and way too orange. We’re going to give them a quick sand and wipe down and then stain them a darker, browner color. Listing picture for reference:

Paint Ceiling. The ceiling in the living room doesn’t actually need a lot of help but there is one section that shows signs of old damage. We fixed the source of the issue soon after we moved in but never took the time to paint the ceiling. We’re going to start with that section and if we decide the rest of the ceiling needs it, we’ll paint the whole thing. I refuse to paint anymore ceilings so this one is all Kyle. You can see it in this picture; it’s the shadowy area between the far beam and the fireplace.

Paint Paneling. This is what I think will make the biggest impact and it’s also the one that scares me the most. I’ve never loved the paneling but it’s actually really nice lumber and it would be a big pain to remove it all. Plus, it’s a huge fad right now in the world of blogging and home improvement; funny how trends circle back around. We had planned on white washing it but I think we’re just going to bite the bullet and paint it. Ours won’t quite look like this since it’s all tongue and groove but just to give you an idea (photo from Brandi Nell the Southern Belle):

Paint Fireplace. We’re not sure if we’re going to paint the fireplace or not but for now we’re keeping it in mind. We want to get the walls done first and see how we feel. I love how warm it is with the brown and tan tones but on the other hand, that doesn’t really go with the rest of our house. We need something to warm up all of the gray and white but I’m not sure the stone fireplace is it. If we do paint it, it’ll probably be white. I don’t love the idea of white walls and a white fireplace (I pushed for gray walls/white fireplace or white walls/different color fireplace) but I’m not the only one who lives in this house and since I get my way 90% of the time, I’m willing to let Kyle have his on this (you’re welcome). Here’s a pretty good idea of what ours could look like (photo from Greige Design).

Laminate Flooring. You already know this one but I figured I’d say it again. Carpet is coming out, laminate is going in. If you look back up at the living room picture you can see a couple of the stains, one of which is roughly the size of a small human. We want to get the rest of the room done first because we’re lazy and want to take advantage of not having to put down drop cloths so the flooring will probably get pushed to the last weekend in January. We already put it in another room (the only other carpeted room downstairs) so we have a pretty good feel for it and it should go pretty quickly when we get to it. Here’s how it looks in the other room so far. Have I mentioned how much I hate the color of our windows? We’ll replace them one day but not today.

So that’s it. This is our first “big” project of the year! I’m pretty excited about it because even though we just cancelled cable, this will probably still be where we spend most of our time. In case you’re wondering about the other projects we started already, the garage is clean (though not as organized as we’d like it) and we’ve slowly been working on caulking the windows. Not too shabby for halfway through January!