Living Room Window Update

Happy Monday! We had a really productive weekend and because of a certain delivery today, we were able to complete the living room window.

This is what we were living with. Ugly huh. We removed the old trim when we painted the living room.

Thomas cut, installed and caulked the new trim..

I painted it.

We bought panel curtains from Ikea, the bar is from Home Sense, and the bamboo blinds are from Overstock.

Things are really starting to come together in this room. I can't wait for the full reveal :)

And you thought we were going to stick with the retro lino..

First of all, you'll notice a diffrent color on the walls..



My friend here is a painter! I am lucky to have her because I am a terrible painter. There aren't many things Thomas isn't good at.. but.. lets just say lightly.. painting is not his forte. We were so thankful for the extra help and to have an expert around!

We chose the Aurora brand from Benjamin Moore. This is an amazing paint + primer in one. Personally I haven't used other brands like Behr, but based on the research and reviews I've read its not very good. BM's Aurora was expensive but we didn't have to prime so that made it okay. Its also low VOC and thats really important to us. The BLUE kitchen of mine had me a little worried but this paint got the job done in ONE COAT.

In the kitchen we painted Benjamin Moore's Baffin Island..



And the living room got a facelift with Benjamin Moore's Seaspray..



Okay so after we painted the walls we had to wait for the ceiling to finish up (sand,sand,paint,stamp)so that slowed us down a little but as soon as it was finished production sped up 10fold!




The flooring we bought is a Costco special. It was a great deal and THICK at 14mm. It's laminate so installation wasnt as difficult as a hardwood. Thomas installed all 500ish SqFT himself and made it look easy breezy. We decided to leave the bedrooms carpet for now and just install the laminate in the kitchen, living room, and hallway.




Hey Wendee.. this wasn't planned you know.. but I'm glad your gift got in the picture! I love them! :)

Please disregard my messy closet! I've warned you.. now onto the hallway ch-ch-changes..

Before



After



Alrighty. That concludes the floor update. Next we have to finish installing baseboards..



Do you know how hard it is to chose a baseboard style? Which one do you like best here?

I always enjoy popcorn..

Except when its on our ceiling.

Thats right everyone. Our very 60's ceiling is gone and heres how it went down in picture form..

This was the best BEFORE shot I could find.. Okay its a little dramatic.. this is what was underneath our lovely room divider and the whole ceiling is not like this.. but you can see the old texture really well around the brown scrungy looking stuff.. :)



Cue dexter.. I mean Thomas.. We taped up the area floor to ceiling in poly to decrease the amount of dust that would travel through the rest of the house. I'm not sure what it would have been like withOUT the poly but I dont want to know.. because I'm still finding ceiling dust where ceiling dust should not be. And the smell was awful. Not a garbage-io smell but like thick heavy dust smell that you dont want to enter your lungs..



A little messy..



Slightly better..





After much discussion we ended up hiring someone to do the rest. Somethings are best left to the pros.







A close look at the overall finished product. We are really happy with our new knock down ceiling and it makes SUCH a big diffrence!

Goodbye Lino, Goodbye carpet

Remember when I gave a small subtle hint about our floors? Well heres a bit of detail!


The start of a very messy situation..



The plywood and lino were pried up. Why? The floors are now even throughout the living room and hallway for the NEW floors to go in..



What we discovered under it all.. Why would you ever want to replace this beautiful even OLDER lino.. I just can't even imagine...







And here is the ritual known to all men.. Stand back, look, and enjoy the work you have just done.





The carpet really didn't seem all that bad.. until we ripped them up and discovered the grung. Yuck! Adios!







From floor to ceiling, this house is getting a makeova! *hinthinthint*

It was terrible knowing you..

Onto our very first order of business. Have you ever walked into a house and thought "Oh my word, you should rip that out." ? Well maybe not. BUT WE DID. The night we found out this house was ours we knew the first project we were going to tackle. I'm going to show you the before and you can probably guess what we did..




So? You think we ripped out the hideous wooden room divider thingy? Yes?? What you think its ugly??? .. Us too. So its gone. And heres how it all went down..

There was a lot of discussion of whether is was a smart idea taking it out. No there wasn't. That was a lie.. I thought if we took it down the house would collapse because this ugly thing was obviously supporting the entire building. I couldn't even get the last word out before I heard a hammer making contact with wood and bam. I guess I was wrong. Timber..






Since this room is far from done I wont share an official after picture. You will just have to wait and see whats next.


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