The Living Room Redo…..

When we moved in (2004), water leaks had ruined the ceiling in about 4 different places and in 2 spots even the walls were damaged……and the original hardwood flooring had not been salvageable when our P.O’s moved into the house so they had put in plywood and carpeting……We lived with the damaged ceilings and walls while we took care of more important upgrades to the house….finally in the spring of 2006 we began the project.

In April, we removed all the furniture, placing the L.R. into the dining room, the dining room into the kitchen and other bits and pieces wherever else they could be shoved…mostly in my office. I thought I’d be okay living like that for the 6 weeks we had projected for the project…….little did we know it would be September before we put that Living Room back together.

Doing the kitchen floor and counters, we’d run into a few issues with wiring and insulation and things like that but while they slowed down the project a little, they were nothing compared to what we found in the living room…..David began the project by ripping open the ceiling in the damaged areas to be certain there were no more leak issues that would undo our hard work…..

The first spot he started on was underneath the upstairs bathroom…………..as he exposed the beams and plumbing, he got a huge shock….the gentleman (cough) who had put in the plumbing for the P.O’s had, instead of moving the plumbing over a bit, cut out a major piece of the joist…..which was held up by one nail! Directly above that basically useless joist was the bathtub! David and I exchanged a look of both disgust and of horror……that tub was basically floating in mid-air with no support. Suddenly, the 40 year old water heater was not a source of complaint but a blessing in disguise….we had all been using the downstairs shower instead of the upstairs tub/shower combo due to the wait time for hot water….

Anyway, this little glitch in the project took about 3 weeks to remedy and a lot more of our funding than we expected......eventually though we got to re-sheet -rock, re-mud, texturize and paint the ceiling...leaving holes for ceiling fans with light kits....Next we tackled the water ruined walls - insulating, more mudding and sanding until finally it was time for the paint technique....I sponged it three times until it has the look of parchment - ....Then came the flooring......that was a long job; repairing the gaps left by the previous renovation where crow bars could go under the house and bring back up weeds(!), installation, sanding, staining and varnishing....and then waiting.....seven days for it all to cure and be safe to reload.

Pevious Owners Formal Living Room