Thursday, October 5, 2006

Finally taking a breath

I've had to attend to a couple of emergencies which took me out of town and offline for a bit. I'm back, everything's OK, but I'm only just now catching up with my world again. Whew!



This project was started a few weeks ago. I/we finally finished it today, save for painting doors and installing one of them. It's technically the living room, and hopefully will be again after we build our addition, but for now it's my office-slash-living room and so hosts a slight mix of living room and office furniture. Still, I'm pleased and it is definitely a huge improvement over how the room has looked through all of its iterations since we bought the house almost 4 years ago.

We've had this flooring for a couple of years, just waiting in boxes for us. We decided that the time was upon us and figured a long weekend and we'd have the floor in. We've been at this remodeling for a while now. We should've known better.

We didn't figure time for the baseboards which needed to be painted, cut and installed. Or the crown molding. Or completely tearing out and rebuilding a door frame because the "new" (vs. how we bought the house) drywall in the family room extended out past the existing frame by a good inch. Or an unexpected mad-dash trip. Or the 1,001 other little fiddly things (like actually locating and then unpacking the boxes which hold the living room knick-knacks) which need doing when you're finishing a room. Laying the floor was relatively easy and each of the other projects weren't too difficult either. But add them all together and it's more than a weekend. Or two.

This is the finished room ... except for those doors and hanging some pictures on the bare walls.


This is what the same angle of the room looked like with the previous owners' stuff in it, complete with dark panelling, built in Formica cabinets, and decades old, yellowing photos on the walls . Lover-ly, ain't it? You're lucky this isn't Scratch 'n Sniff, as the house used to smell as bad as it looked.


Fast (?) forward 3+ years and this is my view out the (newly framed) window. I love it! Not so much on the icky concrete edging and weeds out there. All in time, all in time.


The chairs sitting at either side of the window belonged to my parents. They are quite 1970s and will be replaced at some point after all the remodeling dust settles. But to my eye they almost sort of go with the whole look in the room, and they bring back memories of my childhood which feels as comfortable as actually sitting in them. So for now, they'll be around and I'll laugh at their outward ugliness and smile at their inner beauty.

If you want to see the whole project from start to finish, here are the links:

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

If you want to try out a cool nail gun or learn how to lay floors, c'mon by. We're starting on the adjoining family room next week. If I finish painting the doors by then.

Or maybe I'll sew something this weekend instead. ;-)

9 comments:

  1. Wow, the room looks fantastic. I was wondering what happened to you. Hope all is well and you can enjoy your new sewing room again.

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  2. Beautiful, Debbie. I figured you were either working or otherwise making good use of your time. I think you need to take a break and sew/relax a bit -- curl up with the latest Burda mag and a cup of tea.

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  3. i think after all that work you should take the weekend and sew!

    you are making great progess on the money pit. yep, everything takes more time (and $ usually) than you think, doesn't it?

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  4. Your living room looks great! I was wondering what happened to you because we hadn't "seen" you in awhile. I hope all is well now.

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  5. WooHoo! You are back! :)

    You have made so many lovely improvements. I know it's time-consuming but the results are fabulous!

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  6. Deb, you've been missed. Hope all is well. The house looks lovely. I would love to come by and learn to install the flooring, but alas - I live in Washington. We are getting ready to embark on a floor updating project in our bedrooms. It's a love/hate relationship and I'm not really sure I'm looking forward to it.

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  7. Your room looks great!

    Those chairs would be fabulous with some new funky upholstery.

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  8. Debbie, glad to have you back. What a success transforming that room! I kinda like the chairs... but that's just me. ;)

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  9. We have similar panneling in our den. I plan to paint it a creamy color as it is dark in here. Would like a tear-out-and-replace job, but although we are handy, we are not handy enough to do it ourselves and cannot afford to have it done. We had new carpeting installed a few years ago so we can't mess with that.
    I actually like the chairs and think they could be perked up considerably with new upholstery. You may regret it if you get rid of them.

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Thank you for each and every comment. I appreciate them all, but I have to be honest and let you know that I'm usually bad about answering questions. I hope you understand that there just isn't enough time in the day to do everything I want to do.

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