Living Room Reno

When we moved into our new house, one of the first things I said had to go was the wall separating the previous living room & dining room (seen in this photo from the Realtor website)...sounds somewhat reminiscent of our previous home's wall tear-down.

So Bud, Rudy, Jon, and Uncle Dave tore down the wall while I was out of town for a weekend in July as a surprise to me.  It was only while they were in the process of taking 'er down that they realized it was a weight-bearing wall (oops, my bad) and we had to come up with a way to support it until we were going to finish the whole room.  So we got a much bigger living room out of the deal:

...but then we needed to live with some temporary posts to keep our house from falling down sagging because we waited to start the living room big renovation until Brandon's November vacation (that coincidentally matched up with archery season) so that the reno could start and finish within a short amount of time - since he'd have the time to finish it...and his dad was also vacationing on the same week and had the time to help (hi & thanks Rudy!)  So in between their morning and evening hunting schedules - the dad&son&grandson team was in our living room working away on the reno.

First things were first and that included fixing some phantom electrical wires that were in the floor thanks to the wall tear-down.  Grey caught on real fast that a hammer goes 'bang bang,' and everytime anyone used a hammer from there on out, Booboo could be heard shouting, "Bang Bang, Dadda."

"bang bang, booboo"

 Once all the electrical stuff was taken care of, the men got started on the beam that will exist as our weight-bearing mechanism, but still keep the room wide open.  They did an awesome job and got it up in a matter of a day and a half.

And then it was time to pull up the pink/brown/stained carpet (thank goodness).  Booboo even got in on the help with his big muscles.

Which also meant that we had to play furniture-tetris which Booboo thought was hilarious and kind of fun in a weird maze kind of way.

When the men got to painting,



...Booboo was dying to be a part of the project.  So we smacked his painting-shirt on him and gave him some finger paint and full reign on the floor.  He was happy to get a chance to paint, but of course it only held his attention for a few minutes, until...

...he was able to snatch up some real paintbrushes and cause at least 2 casualties:

I'm taking this as a direct insult to the Time Out chair

Bully & his new white spots

 After the painting, it was time to get the chair rail up (I have a little bit of an obsession seen here, and here) and time to lay the new hard wood floor.  We wanted to stick with consistency, so we ordered the same hard wood that we had used in the dining room reno:  Distressed Bamboo.

Almost to the end of the reno, Brandon and I struggled with hanging the curtain rods (as always, why are curtain rods the most frustrating thing of all time to install?)  I never really 'got' how curtains could make or break a room, until watching True Blood this summer and caught a glimpse of the gorgeous curtains in Luna's house (aka Sam Merlotte's girlfriend) and then knew for sure that once our living room was reno'ed, we'd have some serious curtains.  We are all the way up on top of the mountain and don't need curtains (for the purpose of blocking out neighbor views) but I know understand the purpose curtains have to bring a room together.  So we bought some double curtain rods and did some searching until we found just the right curtains.

hahha, I think its hilarious Bud is balancing on the time out stool

So for the (almost final*) reveal:

oh hey, Bully.  make yourself comfortable

the new floor somehow highlights our beautiful ceilings 

behind the long couch in the back is Booboo's playroom.  Pics to come soon when its finished

*we are still missing new light fixtures, a rug, and some pictures on the walls (!!) but we are getting there.  It is so refreshing to come downstairs in the morning and open the windows and have light stream through onto our new floors.  The double curtains make me so happy and the lace curtain on the inside adds just the right amount of romance to a very cowboy-ranch feeling room.  The orange was a bold choice but one that I think suits our leather furniture (and the sunshine I feel in my heart, hahha.  cheesy).

The colors for the room are:
Sherwin Williams Alabaster (on top)
Sherwin Williams Determined Orange (on bottom)

Champagne curtains from Sears
Lace curtains from Lowes (surprised? I was)
Curtain rods from Lowes