Making Our House a Home

Here are some before and after shots of the work Stephen and I have done to our living room this summer. Going through the pictures I realized I didn't do a very good job taking pictures before we started to get a good idea of how ugly the living room really was, but what's important is that it's not ugly anymore! This is my favorite room in our house right now because we gave it  a major facelift.

BEFORE

We were initially going to go with a green room......good thing we didn't! The 2nd photo on the right I took through the plastic that was blocking all the doorways so the popcorn ceiling dust didn't go anywhere except the living room. Taking the ceiling off was the worst part of this whole project because it was a thousand degrees outside in late June and we had to wear hazmat suites, masks, gloves, and a hat to protect ourselves with all the doors, windows, and AC shut off. That took us a few hours to complete and by the time we finished taking the ceiling off we were completely drenched in sweat.

  I thought this picture was funny. the paint got stuck to the carpet over night and I couldn't get the lid off the paint.

  We had to tape up brown paper to protect our walls when we sprayed on our new ceiling texture.

 We ended up painting the living room blue instead of that hideous green and here we are taking the ugly brown carpet out to reveal our wood floor! I was really surprised how great of shape the wood floor was under the carpet. That carpet was so old the padding underneath just disintegrated when you touched it, so I ended up having to actually sweep up the padding instead of rolling it up like the carpet.

 Next we took up the ply board and linoleum in our entryway. It wasn't in as good as shape as the living room, so unfortunately we now have to refinish the whole floor.

 AFTER

 And voila!! Our new living room. I don't have all our pictures and stuff up on the walls yet, and I put out my Halloween decorations in these photos too so there are fake spider webs everywhere, but it turned out SO nice I can't even believe it is the same space we moved into three months prior. We still have a little more to do to the living room like add curtains, a few side tables and coffee table, lamps and another chair, but those things will come with time.....as soon as we afford them that is. Seeing this gets me all excited to redo our kitchen and bathroom and they both desperately need a make over.