The Initial Projects - The Living Room

Turn the clock back to Fall 2008 and here's the mess we had created:

To describe the chaos that was in the making simply does not do a justice. Luckily we had two months to make as big a mess as we wanted before we had to move any of our boxes and furniture in. And in that two months our house was covered top to bottom with a mish-mash of belongings....our tools, Dad & Mom's tools, Dad & Mom's furniture, our few boxes of things.....let's just say it was difficult not to have a moment or two of overwhelming panic as to our situation!

In September of 2008 my wonderful parents moved most of their furniture, treasures and love to their brand-new-home (and project of their own!) across the river and through the woods to Wisconsin. Leaving us with a blank slate, lots of help and home-improvement wisdom, we began our transformation.

We were at our new hand-me-down most weekends and we jetted there after work to get some improving in too.  From September 2008 to November 2008 we plugged away at the "haircut" we gave the interior.

Here's our two-month transformation:

Our living room in mid-wallpaper-peel (you can see the messy chaos I was referring to earlier).  You may also notice the burber carpet that we later pulled up.

Completely stripped of everything.  Carpet - gone.  Wallpaper - gone.  Junk - gone.  An absolutely clean slate for us!

 Primed and painted (a post wallpaper wall requires LOTS of primer!).  The new flooring has been installed here.

And finally!  The day before we moved in it was ready for our furniture and starting to feel like home.


Here's the run-down of what we did in the living room:

- Removed baseboards (which were later revarnished)
   (TIP: sometimes it is easier to carefully pull the nails through the back than to pound the nails back out the front strait).
- Stripped off wallpaper with DIF Gel and scrapers
- Serious spackling of cracked drywall where the glue from the wallpaper was
- Removed old carpeting (which is now used in the workshop/garage -- good carpet can always be used somewhere -- why pay to have it hauled away?!)
- Remove carpet staples from flooring
- Install laminate flooring
- Several coats of primer on walls
- PAINT!
- Re-install baseboards
- Furnish (the rug we scored for a steal at Home Depot when they were having a sale - that's the way to go!!)

VIOLA!

Next post -- the kitchen