The House that went from Drab to Fab - Living/Dining Room

 Our Living Room was the 2nd Room we renovated.  After almost three years in our home, I couldn't stand the ugliness of this room, plus the fact that it was the first place people saw when they entered into our home.  The room needed some major repairs to say the least.  When we first moved in I would over decorate to hide the hideousness.  By the pictures below you can tell it really didn't help much.  The mirror above the fireplace was not my style, and it had some well worn parts to it.  I wanted my husband to remove it as soon as we moved in, but he was afraid of what may lie behind it, so it stayed.  The room had an unnecessary door leading into the bedroom (girls room) that we put the couch up against until it could be enclosed.  We put temporary window coverings on the windows (especially after we had a few comments made from neighbors that they saw us eating dinner...as they drove past), and I didn't like the feeling of being in a fish bowl. The room needed extensive T-L-C, and (if you look closely at the 2nd picture below, you will notice next to the kitchen doorway a really bad patch job next to the console table, we believe the wall had been kicked in).   The ceiling was covered in black soot, since the fireplace was improperly ventilated causing the smoke to come into the house. And to top it all off, the fireplace cover itself was pretty, but needed some attention, but the tile surrounding the fire place was an orange brown, which also appeared to have been painted with stain.  A few more highlights were that the room had no lights, ugly 80-ish maroon carpet that smelled like animal urine, the hardwood floor under the carpet had several holes in it (large enough that we could not salvage the floor), outlets were just boxes randomly placed in the floors around the room and there were too few.

The process began in late spring.  Most of the furniture was moved out of the room, and the the process of gutting it began.  The paint-able burlap like wallpaper was removed from the walls (it went from one side of the room across the ceiling and down the other side), the one wall had all the lathe and plaster removed and the hardwood floor was removed along with all old electrical.  The photo below in the first picture, shows how the electrical boxes were placed throughout the house just against the wall, and in some places just in the floor.  The photo below to the right shows the holes that were randomly in the floor.

Once the room was completely gutted, the process of putting it back together began.  The ceiling was furred out to add insulation (and boy did this house need it).  The wall that was behind the couch had the door framed in and additional framing was added to studs that needed some additional support.  Plywood was put along the floor to make way for the new bamboo flooring.  The outside walls were drilled out to add electrical boxes, recessed into the wall.  And new electrical outlets, switches, and fan boxes added.  While my husband was crawling around in the yucky attic he found that at one time the family room had had a light. We wondered as to why any one would want to remove it.

Once all the rough work was done, new Sheetrock was added to the walls.  To help smooth out the outside walls, Sheetrock was added to them also, as the lathe and plaster was basically plastered to the brick. Trim was added around all the doors and windows and wainscoting was added around the room.  The fireplace mantel was sanded down and a shelving system was built in on the corner wall to make the space usable.  By September the room was all prepped and ready for paint and flooring.

We used a raisin-red paint on the upper walls with a light rose glaze ragged over the top.  The combination was quite beautiful and made the room feel very cozy.  The white trim and wainscoting kept the room light and airy.  My husband installed Bamboo flooring which I immediately loved and it made the room look and feel so complete.  The Fireplace Mantel was stained and the fireplace cover was refreshed.  We removed the tile, but found the brick underneath to be quite charming, so we never did re-tile it. We had custom blinds ordered for the windows and boy was this such a treat for me.

Below is a collection of the room at the time it was finished.  I know they are a bit dark, but they were all I had.

Below are pictures of the Living/Dining room at the time we sold the home.  It was one of my most favorite rooms in the house, and I really miss the coziness.  We were given such compliments over the years for this room and most people thought that the red paint was wallpaper.  Even all the Realtor's who we had come and viewed our home, commented on the "wow factor" this room possessed when you walked in.  Soon my husband will start on our new family room and give it the same trim and paint job.  We even kept the old square wood windows from above the fireplace cabinets (when we had the new ones installed) that we will add as a decoration to our new fireplace mantel.