Living Room Remodel

We have lived in our current home for about 3 years now, 2 years as renters and a little over a year as homeowners. We loved the house from the first time we laid eyes on it and we were so excited when the option to buy became a reality. We started renovating while we rented, with the homeowners permission, in exchange for a low monthly rent.

Before I forget, I can not tell you how amazing my husband is. I never once put "handyman" on my list of things I wanted in a husband when I was younger......but I'M SPREADING THE WORD, girls listen up...ADD IT TO YOUR LIST...right under #1-Loves the Lord, #2-Handyman.

Adam seems to be able to fix everything, build everything, re-do anything and in the process has saved us BOOCOOS of money! One of the top ten greatest/sweetest/ most precious things that Adam has ever said to me is "honey, this is our home, lets make it ours, do what you want". Saying that to this artsy fartsy soul was like giving me permission to do my thing...like all over the house, no holding back......thus the green fridge :)!

Our list of renovations in the living room looked like this..
1-Rip up old ugly carpet that had enough stains to play connect the dot on it
2-Rip out most of the beams on the ceiling, living only the middle one and painting it white
3-Taking down painted paneling in the living room, retexturing, painting
4-Redoing the build in bookshelves in the fireplace
5-Stripping the paint off of the brick fireplace
6-Knocking out the ledge to allow the fireplace to go all the way from floor to ceiling
7-Moving some lights and fans around
8-New wood flooring
9-Painting all of the dark wood trim white
10-Knocking out current door from living room to kitchen to expand it by 5-6 feet
11-Reorienting living room around fireplace which meant hanging TV above fireplace
...and most of the renovations happened while the kids and I were in Alabama visiting family :).

All of the furniture removed, panoramic view

You can already see here where the old ledge was on the fireplace by the change of color in bricks. We scrubbed those bricks with paint thinner until the red started to pop back through the white paint. The old bookshelves are still in their place and Adam had just knocked out the wall and taken up the old carpet.

Standing in the kitchen looking out into the living room.

You can see where the old door was by how the tile is laid in the kitchen. The original entry was very small and made me feel very isolated in the kitchen.

You can see the outline of the old wooden beams that met up with the large middle beam. Adam knocked those down, scarped all of the popcorn off the ceiling and retextured!

This picture is a little out of order...opening up the entryway between the living room and kitchen.

The final product :).

 I love this final shot with me lounging while I probably write a post after the kids are in bed. You can see the finished flooring which is beachy looking wide strips of wood. You can see the finished bookshelves..we extended one side down to take up the whole space. We chose "smoky pitch" as the wall color, added in curtains, barrel lighting over the dining room table, a large area rug and spray painted the firescreen cover silver. If you look to the extreme right you can also see into the kitchen which we painted gray.

Here are some detail pictures from a shower we threw just last weekend. We moved the fan back over the couch, hung some large floor to ceiling curtains, got a new chair with ottoman and you can also see just how much gray is in our wood flooring.

I'll need to take a better detailed shot but we ended up using old wood from the deconstructed patio out back to frame out the new entryway. Everyone who sees it loves it!!! That was definitely my Handyman's idea :). 

You can see it a little better from this picture at our Christmas party. This is my soon to be sister in law....Isn't she pretty :). I love her, I have since day one. I love everything about her and the new family we will be gaining...most of all I love the way she loves my brother :).

Happy Presidents Day!!!