The Never Ending Project... End in site? Our Living Room Part 1

Our Living Room Part 1
By (me) Remodelaholic

Once upon a time, we started working on our living room.  In case you are wondering, that was over 18 months ago.  And well, the project has sort of been frozen in time ever since.  Part of the problem was that we redesigned the entry, and then we weren't sure how we wanted the final columns to look... then we had to figure out how to build up the columns, and then... we had to decide how we wanted the kitchen to be, because this wall also effected the way the kitchen design would look.

A lot of factors, a lot of decisions, and a person not ready to commit.

Well, I am finally ready to commit.

We have been working LIKE MAD on this room since just before Thanksgiving.  We don't always get to work on it every week or weekend because of scheduling though.  Also we couldn't just take time off because we need to save that for when the baby comes.  Luckily, Christmas and New Years paid holidays have made all the difference.  And we are about 1/3 of the way there... to a finished project.

That may sound like not very far, but when I say 1/3 that means we only have about:

1/6 of actual contractors type work, finishing crown molding, caulking and some painting left

1/3rd for the new flooring to be installed and then base boards

1/6th for the final wrap up of decorating, and that will include some possible purchases. (fingers crossed)    I know can you believe it?  After a ten year stretch I think I am finally ready to commit and buy a sofa- Cue R.E.M.  "It's the end of the world as we know it..." (I will post about that later though)

So, I wanted to show you what we first did when we moved in, which I never blogged about.

Here are the pictures of the walk through:

The carpet is fraying, right next to the kitchen... we still haven't replaced it... but we do have a nice 3 inch strip of Duct tape, cuz we're classy like that!  But I am planning on this being a thing of the past in only a few weeks.... SQUEAL!!!

Moving in....

One of the first changes that had to be made was removing the GINORMOUS chandelier hanging 4 feet from the floor in the center of the living room.  Not only was it not our style, but black eyes aren't really our thing either..

This expression on Justin's face is hilarious... he's hamming it up for the camera!

We were able to sell the fixtures we didn't like on Craig's list.  The buyers were stoked and we were happy for the cash, which actually covered the purchase of our new lights... (since we found most of them at the Habitat Re-Store.)

I know some of you are gagging at the choice of a ceiling fan, but people we live in Texas.  We use this sucker about 10 months out of the year.  It is a necessary evil.  I personally don't mind the look of it, and am thankful for the energy it saves us during the hot months!  Besides, that is what the room was wired for, with a switch for the fan and one for the light, which is a nice feature.

One thing I couldn't stand was this breakfast bar, into the living room.  First of all the dining table is three feet away, and secondly it takes up a ton of space in the living room.  And the kitchen is already big enough so it was unnecessary.  And of course, one day while Justin was away... I removed it...Girl power!

At one point I was dying for some color and since we decided not to spend money on a bunch of paint, before we got to our final decisions...(which looking back was a good choice..) I used a left over green paint from our Asheville house which I loved there, but I never fell back in love with here.

Next, we choose to also bring this wall up a bit, since inevitably I have dishes in the sink when someone just decides to stop by, this way they can't see those!  Ha!  We used scrap wood we had just sitting around, so it looks a little hodge-podge, but that works for me.

We then capped it and added molding over the gap.

Okay, I think that is all for now.  We will continue this transformation next week.  No we haven't gotten to the "wow" moment yet... I promise it is coming!!

Coming posts will include:

How this room has under gone A LOT of changes in furniture placement.  Mostly because as I became more serious with this blog, I had a lot more computer time.  And our computer was in an armoire, and I felt so isolated... and at some point we had to abandon it...

Anyway, I also wanted a little more interest than your average, long sofa on the long wall set up, that this room seems to dictate

I will show you our plans, and how they changed last week... literally in the middle of the project... then how we've been gettin'er done man!  ... be prepared to be WOWED!  (I am not exactly kidding either, it is a HUGE project) and I am VERY partial at the moment, I hope I would be after all we've been up to...