We’ve been done with the living room for about a week but it’s been so overcast every day that by the time I get home, it’s too dark to take pictures. I finally managed to snag some this weekend although my camera was dead so I had to settle for phone photos. Before we get into it I want to say that eventually there are other things we want to do in here but this is what we could do right now. The fireplace needs to be refaced so we can correct some damaged subfloor that runs beneath it, the windows need to be replaced, we want to eliminate or move the columns, we still need to build a storage unit on the far side of the room by the window to house our movie collection, we need all new furniture, the canvas on the fireplace is temporary until we order what we really want to hang, the curtains need to be shortened a bit, we still need to get curtains for the other window, and we still need a rug. The room is pretty bare right now but it’s still a far cry from the dark orangey hole it was before!
In case it’s not burned into your brain already, here is what the space looked like before:
And here is what it looks like now:
We removed the mantle from the fireplace. I love it right now but I’m sure I’ll miss it at Christmas. The canvas is temporary which is why we didn’t bother drilling a new hole to hang it centered. We would have just left the fireplace bare but there’s a big white test spot from when we were positive we were going to paint it.
Here’s a good shot of the paint spot; this was the night we stained the beams; you can see how much browner they are compared to the paneling on the walls.
After:
We decided against painting the fireplace (obviously) and I really love the warmth that it adds to the room. When you think about it, we didn’t really do a ton to this room but I feel like it made such an impact. We put in laminate flooring, painted the paneling and ceiling, stained the beams, and added some heavy gray curtains for privacy.
Before. The white blanket is our band-aid fix for the hole the dogs put in the couch.
After. The walls and ceiling were painted the same color but it doesn’t look as stark on the walls since we let some of the wood bleed through. We were worried about losing the grain in the wood by painting over it instead of white washing but there’s a fair amount that still comes through. We stopped after two coats because we liked the look but if we wanted to completely cover the wood we could have kept painting.
Apparently I don’t have a before and after picture of the tv wall but here it is during the painting process. This is a good representation of the first coat vs the second coat.
This project took a little longer than we thought because we were slow when it came to installing the transitions (treads for the sunken living room, two transition pieces into the kitchen, one for the powder room, and one for the laundry room). Since we can’t yank out the kitchen tile yet, we needed to put down a transition piece to make everything seamless. Here’s what it looks like transitioning from the entry to the start of the tile by the stairs. Your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you, we really are missing a bunch of grout; that’s what happens tile is installed incorrectly.
I am so glad that we decided to add this project to our plans this year. We have found that a big downside to the new flooring is that there’s nothing to dampen the sound. This isn’t a big deal until the dogs start running around and wrestling and then it gets LOUD. I’m on the hunt for a rug now to help.
We’re kind of at a stand still on house projects right now. It was nice enough outside over the weekend to do a little bit of yard work but we really didn’t even make a dent in what needs to be done. I haven’t been able to work on stripping the new to us front door but I’m hoping within the next couple of weekends I can get started back on that. We also have a huge bathroom issue that’s going to bring us from a 2.5 bath house to a 1.5 bath temporarily. I’ll tell you about soon!
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