The Living Room Reveal!

 The Living Room Reveal!
I am so happy to finally be posting this!
That means I am finally at a point where I can look at these pictures again
and relive this memory!
I'll spare you the long version...but just know that any project you undertake is always:
Messier
Takes longer
and is More Expensive
than you plan.
We closed on this adorable 1951 home mid January.
I had eye surgery a week or so later, so I was not much help for a couple weeks.
But here is the living room when you walk in.  MLS pictures.

 Not bad.
They just put in brand new carpet and painted.
Too purple of a gray for me.
It was nice...but was not us.
That permanent plaster and lathe scallop old lady curtain was not our thing.
Not one bit.
This room needed some serious Shaw in it.
No need for a sit-and-visit room.

 The windows were old and leaky...and covered in ivy.
Adorable and no need for curtains...but old and drafty for sure.

 Day one.
Carefully remove carpet and pad to use in another area of the house.
Rip out the "built in" shelf.
That thing was 8 inches deep on top and 2 feet deep on the bottom...I knew there was more wasted space lurking behind that wall, and I was right!

 Here's a picture of the wood floor we found underneath.
Dog urine soaked and stuck pad.
Poor transitions.
Sad day for us.

 Alas, every day we worked and made the most colossal mess.
Everything dusty, dirty and dangerous.
We enlisted my husbands dad to help us.  He made short work of the giant scallop things and cut out a perfect frame for our room transition.  This is also a support wall, so it needs to be built up again.
But no scallops.
See that popcorn ceiling?  Who invented that?  Ugh.

 This was us, daily.
Don't breathe the air!

 I did not want to cover up these windows.
They let in light and were pretty...but we had a couple of problems.
Firstly, where to put our entertainment zone?
Second...at night, you can see right into our neighbors kitchen...not thrilling.
I knew we'd end up blinding them off anyway, so we decided to
 fill them with foam insulation all caulked in.

 And then frame them in with 2X4's and OSB board.
See that lovely paint?
Peeled off the wall in big sheets when we removed the popcorn ceiling.
Good thing I didn't like the color in the first place, right?

 We found a gorgeous gray.
It was at the Restore, so I got 5 gallons of Sherwin Williams paint for $20.  Win.
After priming every wall and ceiling in the upstairs with Kilz Primer...
we finally began the painting gray.

 And the ceiling.  2 coats of paint everywhere.
Our poor necks!
My kids are such hard workers.
And we homeschool, so it was fun for them to learn all about building a house!
I'm not showing you that we had to rewire all the electric throughout the house...
as well as the ventilation and plumbing...and everything else
 that sucks and takes forever.

 Next came the beams.
My husband did all the sanding and distressing.
He was covered in man-glitter.
You will see that I am utterly in love with untreated pine.
I love the light (not yellow) wood.
I love it!

 The beams were all placed and bolted in.

 We needed lots of help for this part!

 Then the beam had some decorative dowels placed over the bolts so it
 looks like it's all doweled together.  I painted the window cavities black.

 We got this fantastic laminate from Home Depot for 79 cents a square foot.
It's called Lakeshore Pecan.
With the underlayment it cost us about $700 to floor our
985 square foot upstairs...minus the bathroom.  Worth every penny.

 We laid out the underfloor and taped the pieces together.

 And then the laminate just clicks into itself!
The trickiest part is doorways and edges that need to be cut...

 So we started right in the entry way.

 We had a great cutting zone set up under the carport.

 Even floored the craft room (or the only "bedroom" upstairs.

 I love the flooring.  It is warm and inviting...but not yellow.
 It's a great mix of dark and very light wood.  We love it!

 We staggered our pieces in lengths against this far wall.
They are 1/4 steps in a "random" looking order...but it was all very precise.

 This picture describes how we all felt about the floor.
Finally, no dust, dirt and nails...finally we could take our shoes off!!!

 It looks amazing and cleans up great!
See that open closet where the bookshelf was?
That's my husbands desk/office space.

 We trimmed out around the kitchen doorway
(more to come on the kitchen later)
But it stayed like this for a while.  At least we set up our wii, right?

We replaced all the windows in the house as well.
With the front picture window, we had it replaced smaller than the
 other one that went nearly to the floor.
This would be better for my desk.

 My husband built me a desk with an acrylic top and colored lights that
 shine through it like a discotheque!

Next we framed in the windows.

 And built in the entertainment wall.

 We absolutely love it!
It fits our needs perfectly!

 We have a long desk for the kids to o their school at.
And our fun entertainment area!

 Everyone has a chair with wheels...so they can roll around the floors!

 Directly behind the kids desk is my husbands.
First the wall looked like this:
A tiny bookshelf with wasted space.

 We opened it up and framed it all in with reclaimed bits and pieces of wood.
Leaving that amazing (but currently not used) pipe showing!

 I painted all the OSB board black to give it the same look as the windows we covered.
I love how it looks!

My big open table is my favorite.
I use it all the time!
It is covered in projects 99% of the time!

 The black out curtains are nice for movie nights and LAN parties!
But the window lets in enough light to take pictures indoors during the day!  Yay!
Since this picture, we have changed my desk quite a bit...but that will save for another day.

 We acquired this love seat from my parents who willingly relinquished ownership.
And immediately tore off the ruffle edging and the legs and added casters.  Now our loveseat can roll around as well.  When it is not needed for the TV viewing, it's flipped and rolled in front for chatting.
I love the versatility!
Someday I will reupholster this loveseat...but it is not this day!

 Way fun, right?!!
Like I said, this redo totally fits our needs and our likes.
We are project people and need room to work at desks and create things!

 What do you think about the living room reveal?

This post published on Doodlecraft first