Livingroom Repair

Whew! We finally began work on the living room. That photo might not look like much, but as soon as you start scrolling you'll see how we got to that point!

There is so much prep to do before we start the floors. We want to get all the drywall repair and painting done first. Because no one wants to start painting right after new floors are installed! In order to do that, we have a list of things to check off.

Here's the list:

~~Paint the front window and restore window seat~~ (Finished!)
Take out all of the radiant baseboards
Re-run all of the electrical in the living room
Repair all of the drywall from taking out the baseboard heat
Skim coat where window was behind TV
Finish painting ceiling (if you remember, I only painted the kitchen area including where we took down the wall and repaired it.)
Paint all of the walls
Finish drywall in hallways
Paint hallways
Add electrical outlets under couch

First item checked off...the front window. It turned out great, check it out! Front Window Makeover

Okay, we have lots to do! So, let's dive in!

The first thing we did when we moved in over 4 years ago was upgrade the heating. There was a 60+ year old boiler in the basement that ran hot water to all the radiant heat baseboards. Which left nasty stains on all of the walls.

We installed a dual air/heat system so we could take out all of the baseboard heaters in the house. Yay! We've been slowly removing them as we work on each room.

It was a job! After it was all ripped out, we needed to repair the drywall. It wasn't too hard, just cut pieces to fit, then screw them in. In order to make sure it was flush with the existing wall, we had to add 2 layers.

Then the 'fun' part... not... lots and lots of drywall joint compound.

After about 3-4 coats of joint compound and sanding...we were ready to paint! While I was doing all of the drywall mudding, Hubby re-ran all of the electrical for the living room. I'm so thankful for all the stuff he knows how to do!!

Since he was working on the electrical.... I really wanted outlets under the couch. This would make it possible to have lamps without an extension cord running under the rug. 😍

You can see the extension cord mess under the couch, plus the taped extension cord. Placement for the outlets were somewhere near those little pieces of blue tape. He used a multi-tool reciprocating saw to cut the holes.

Here he used flooring to get the right height of the outlet box.

TaDa!! Outlets finished!!

Now it's time to finish all of the painting. Take a closer look at the ceiling in the next photo. You can clearly see where I stopped painting. That was back when we remodeled the kitchen and we took out the wall that was there. Kitchen Demo - Last Wall To Come Down

Bless Hubby's heart, he painted the whole dining and living room while I was working on drywall repair.

This is the ceiling paint we used. It is the very best when it comes to camouflaging ceilings that are not perfect... It is a 'dead flat' paint. Which means it's so flat there is no sheen to it whatsoever. I did a whole post on this comparing it to a regular ceiling paint. Ceiling Paints Are Not Created Equal

Benjamin Moore Waterbourne Ceiling Paint

There's something beautiful about fresh white paint. Can you see how dingy and yellowy the wall was? I feel like it gives a blank slate to work with.

Then lastly to paint the hallway. It was soooo nice to get that painted. It's been unfinished drywall for 3 years.... ugh!

I know this is a long post, but for me it's so worth it to document and see how far we've come. Up next... finished photos!! Then we can finish the floors!! Livingroom done!