Almost done.

Well yesterday we moved one step closer to finishing our living room remodel. The furniture was delivered. I'm in love with it. I actually feel we have fruniture that fits the room. We need to finish the windows and get draperies, buy the flat screen and bookcases for the fireplace and figure out the lighting situation. But over all it's progressing nicely.


The sectional is just awesome isn't it? it gives us so much more seating and better viewing of the tv.


Spencer is adjusting and so is Rob. He settled into his new recliner with ease. Kicked back and clicker in hand.


How nice it is to sit in the living room again.

PROGRESS

What a busy 2 weeks we've had. We got all the drywall installed and Matt "the drywall guy" did our mudding and taping. Yeah, he finished on Saturday so we started painting on Sunday. Thank god my parents decided to stay an extra day. With their help we got two coats of primer on the walls and ceiling.


Look at what a beautiful wall we have. Love the look of unpainted drywall.


My father is so proud of his carpentry skills. He built this wonderful fireplace surround with me designing on the fly. And sometimes the vision wasn't conveyed well so we struggled trying to get the image out of my head and built. I wanted inset glass tiles and found this tan-brown pattern at Home Depot. With a little dark tan grout we ended up with a fantastic "Bling" look on the front.


When one needs weight to hold down the glued panels you use what you have, bowling balls. They worked great. It's a good look isn't it?


And today the first coat of paint went on the walls. This was the first wall done, 2 1/2 hours later I finished. Whew...what a day. The only good thing is my arms are getting one heck of a workout lately.


Tomorrow I'll show you the finished (prepainted) fireplace and the walls all done. Now I have to order the carpet. Sorry Rob but it may cost a few dollars.

The work crew multiplies...

Well Friday may have been my birthday but there was work to be done and breakfast to be had. We started our day off eating at Leon's. Good omlettes! Rob took the day off so we could get a jump on hanging dry wall. Debbie played hokey and went in late so she could join us. She's always entertaining, her Kaiti stories are good right now as Kaiti is 6 months into being a teenager.

Then the supervisor was waiting for us slackers at home and we began the "hanging of the ceiling". OH what fun. My parents arrived on Tuesday and they are ever so helpful. Ya just gotta love Virgil and Patsy.


Virgil was busy running electrical, cable and phone lines for us. Thank god my Dad's an electrician. He saves us time and money. I did feel bad about leaving a mess in Marybeth's room. It sucks to be the cellar dweller when they are taking apart your ceiling to drill holes and forget to clean up the mess. So sorry MaryB.


Let me just tell you all right now, rent the drywall lift when doing ceilings. It saved us so much neck ache and sore shoulders. Up it went pretty quickly too. Measure, cut, spread glue, lift, fit into place and screw. That simple.


On Saturday we started hanging the walls. Our buddy Erol stopped in to lend a hand, and some muscles for holding drywall in place. And up went some walls. We moved right along even though our supervisor was laying down on the job.


We took a break mid afternoon to watch Brendan's baseball game, (they won 13-3) and while we were gone Patsy and Virgil hung the corner sheet of drywall. They just can't take a break.


We have some wall work to finish on Sunday. Hopefully the drywall guy comes by to say when he can mud and tape. I can't wait. I'm ready to paint and install carpet. But first things first, finish hanging drywall. Ugh one more day.

Demo done...

I'd like you all to see our supervisor. He's doing a "bark up" job. Thank god the messy parts over, right? Ohhh I know we have lots to go.


This is our lovely fireplace. I can't wait for it to be gone. It needs a face lift almost as much as Joan Rivers.


Now someone tell me why Rob thinks this projects is going to cost him more every time he turns around? I think we are right on budget. And yes I had planned on ripping out the 15 plus year old carpet right from the beginning. The padding underneath was disintegrating. Time to go! Gone. :)


Full dumpster. I won't tell anyone that Debbie snuck some stuff in there when Dave wasn't looking. That's what he gets for taking a nap on Saturday afternoon. Rumor has it their garage is cleaner.


What lovely hardwood floors we ended up with. Too bad they weren't in better shape, I'd have saved them. No such luck, they will be covered over with new carpet.


OK is anyone placing bets on how long it will take to put it back together? I want in on that pool. I'm hoping for 2-3 weeks. Not 2-3 months. Virgil and Patsy are due in today so that should help. Off to finish cleaning up, and preparing to have visitors for 10 days.

What? More paneling?

Well we finally got all the furniture moved out and into the garage/upstairs and Rob couldn't wait to begin demo. First he ripped off the mantel and look the paneling was cut to fit around the mantel. Well who would do that?


And then as the knotty pine panels came down we found ohh more paneling. But this time the cheap stuff. Oh and it was supported by 2x4's. Come on, Really? When it all came down we found that they had built the wall out a good 4-6"s. Can you say HillBilly construction?


It's down and the dumpster comes Thursday. Next step remove our baseboard heating and then the old plaster comes off. Let the real mess begin! This project is already a bit behind schedule. OK my schedule not Rob's, he probably doesn't have one. My parents come Tuesday June 2nd and they are in for a little more work then maybe they thought. Sorry Mom. I'll cook really well that week and make it up to them. Can you say Brownies and Cake? Maybe throw some cookies in. Dad will be ok.

Right now I'm waiting for the cable guy to come and fix the box so we get all the channels and not just the ones over 99. Yes yesterday brought may strange things. Who knew.

And it begins....

I want to give everyone the full picture of how Desperate our living room is. Brendan thought we should mess up the house a little more and then call "Clean House". God I love my kid. "Um NO!" We'll just clean it up ourselves. And while were at it lets "REMODEL"! Yeah. I've been waiting a long time, 7 years to be exact. And we started today. Had to move a bunch of stuff around and throw a lot of junk out. But we did manage to get a good start on emptying out our living room.

We got side tracked by hockey games and Free Tiger tickets. So tomorrow we'll finish and just maybe Rob will get to start his "Demo".




The look on Rob's face we priceless when I said, "We MUST empty everything out of this room before we knock down any walls!" His response "Oh". Yes we will empty it and hang plastic over the doorways to prevent dust scattering everywhere. I can't wait. We have 3 weeks to get the plaster down and the drywall up and painted. My folks will be here to do the fireplace in 3 weeks. That's good, we have a deadline.

Tomorrow I'll post the empty room shots. Now that will be entertaining.

(Don't ya just love the paneling and the deer head? And please don't forget about the dingy red brick on the fireplace. Makes my skin crawl just looking at the photo.)