We are still trucking along in an effort to complete our great room. We resurfaced the fireplace, knocked down a wall separating our two living rooms, laid wood floors in half the den and have really been working hard. Somehow in the midst of being pregnant and having a new baby things seemed to slow down in the remodeling department. I’m not sure why we didn’t get it all knocked out BEFORE we had a baby, but somehow life was just too much fun back then. We got caught up with work and play and traveling and just pushed remodeling to the side.
Well, now that our precious girl is getting more and more mobile it is absolutely necessary that we have the house safe and finished for her. So needless to say we are buckling down and getting it done.
Over the last few weeks we have done a lot of work (I use the term ‘we’ loosely here, Kenny is the real worker, I hand him tools and make sure baby M is content and out of the way). Kenny cleaned out all of the miscellaneous furniture and ‘things’ that were overtaking our formal living room and dining room and got it prepared for a major undertaking.
I helped get the last bits of wall paper off the walls, it was mostly around the windows and doors where it was glued down extra tight. Kenny had removed 98% of the wallpaper about six years ago and I promised I’d get those last scraps off. Well honey, it only took six years right?
Kenny took down the old light fixtures and painted the ceilings a bright white, it took three coats of paint, that ceiling was really soaking it up. It is so refreshing to see that bright white reflecting the light back at us. You never realize the old ceilings aren’t bright white until you get that new paint up there. Wow, what a difference.
Next Kenny filled all the imperfections and nail holes with drywall putty along with his little helper girl attached to his chest in the baby bjorn. Once the walls were a close to perfect as we could get we used an air compressor and spray hopper to apply a light ‘orange peel’ knock down texture to the walls. It is super subtle, but just enough to hide any major flaws in the walls. Kenny has gotten really good with that texture gun and we really like the effect.
Once the texture was good and dry we got to work painting. We used more of our five gallon bucket of Sherwin Williams Nomadic Dessert. We are using this tan color on all the walls of the great room and kitchen to tie them all together and make it feel like on huge space. We did the painting on a nice day so we could open all the windows and keep the air flow and ventilation good. Once again Kenny did all the major roller work and I just did the cutting in around the ceiling, doors, windows and any edges. It was so thrilling to see the paint finally go up on the walls, we could really see the space starting to come together.
This past weekend we finally got to the flooring. We rolled out and duct taped down all of that lovely blue underlayment and started connecting the beautiful wood floors. It is kind of slow going at the moment. We can only work in our spare time after Kenny gets home from work and soccer practice, but we have gotten several gorgeous rows completed and are sure to finish it off this coming weekend.
Thanks for hanging in there with us while we slowly got our remodel underway again. We will try to have more pictures of the finished product up soon.
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2 comments
freda
February 3, 2013 at 10:54 am (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Hard work! At least you had a “Helper”. I’m anxious to see the finished room, I bet it will be beautiful.
Kenny and Karen
February 16, 2013 at 3:48 pm (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Thanks, we are excited to show the results!