The living room has seen sporadic and pretty random progress to be honest but its getting there! This is how it looked on move in day, I ripped that bit of wallpaper off to see what was underneath and we inherited the green lamp with the house...
This was the door out to to the kitchen, which originally opened out to a little hallway with the kitchen door to the right and the utility room and toilet on the left, you can see what we did there in the post about the kitchen progress.
This was the one room out of the whole house where all four walls were not wallpapered with just the feature walls being wallpaper, although the entire ceiling was wallpapered just to make up for it. We stripped that all off pretty early on and took up the carpet.
It stayed like this for quite some time, bare floorboards which luckily were in pretty decent condition, and bare walls. The kitchen lived in here for a bit until it was fitted and before we moved in!
We moved the furniture in from our flat and it stayed like this for a good few months, the sofa doesn't fit at all as its too big to fit on any of the walls or sit in the room very well so its awkwardly plunked in the middle of the room for now. The corner turtle tank has a nice home in the corner though. Its pulled out from the wall at the moment while we paint and do skirting boards then it will be pushed back (which is why it is currently sat on an old sofa throw, so we can move it around easily without scratching the floors).
These photos were taken on the day I did the white coat and caulked around the moulding, hence the roller tray, caulk and random loo roll being out!
Into the current after/during/probably still mostly before photos! The biggest difference in here I think has been the flooring. We went for laminate flooring through the downstairs rather than the dark carpets that were in here and its made such a difference in how light the space is and ties in the hallway and porch with the living room making it seem more spacious.
Colour wise we went for a light grey in this room, it doesn't get the most light as its north facing so we really wanted quite a light colour to keep it from being too gloomy. The colour is "Goose Down" from Dulux. I got the nice bright white curtains from a charity shop but they are Ikea. I had originally planned to go for a darker more petrol blue type tone in here (you can see some of the tester patches in the before photos) but it just came out too dark for the room. I don't mind it because in the summer it keeps the living room and bedroom quite cool and it means we have a south facing sunny garden and kitchen, but this room really does not get a lot of direct sun.
In here we need to do skirting boards (as every other update has said, they are in progress now as you can see by some of these after photos) and do something about the ceiling. The ceiling will probably need to be reskimmed but we will see if maybe some specialist paint can help. It was wallpapered over and was in rough shape underneath so at the moment we have just painted it white and try not to look at it. We also really need to change that light fixture, the chandelier with plastic jewels mounted off centre on a circular ceiling rose thing isn't quite our style. A few people have commented that they like it, so any takers for it let us know!
I think we will paint the fireplace and keep it for now until we get into phase 2 of the house (doing things because we want to rather than we have to), but eventually the fire will need to be replaced too as it is pretty old and doesn't work overly well. We've had it serviced and checked and its safe to use, it just takes forever to light it, its not overly pretty and the front panel keeps falling off.
Then the main thing is changing the sofa as the one we have just does not fit this room. We are thinking a more standard 3 piece suite with a 3 or 4 seat sofa on the wall between the two doors, a smaller one under the window and then maybe an armchair and footrest next to the turtle tank. We need to do that really before we do much else like getting end tables, lamps, putting up artwork etc as the placement of the TV, artwork, tables, the turtle tank etc all depend on what sofa we get and now that changes the layout of the room. I would also like to add some built in shelves to the alcoves once we decide where the TV is going to end up.
Hopefully we will get the sofa soon, its just not necessarily a priority money wise when there is so much else to do. We have been moving along with the skirting boards so hopefully soon we will be able to push the turtle tank back into the corner which will open the room up a bit more too and make everything look slightly less odd!
This was the door out to to the kitchen, which originally opened out to a little hallway with the kitchen door to the right and the utility room and toilet on the left, you can see what we did there in the post about the kitchen progress.
This was the one room out of the whole house where all four walls were not wallpapered with just the feature walls being wallpaper, although the entire ceiling was wallpapered just to make up for it. We stripped that all off pretty early on and took up the carpet.
It stayed like this for quite some time, bare floorboards which luckily were in pretty decent condition, and bare walls. The kitchen lived in here for a bit until it was fitted and before we moved in!
We moved the furniture in from our flat and it stayed like this for a good few months, the sofa doesn't fit at all as its too big to fit on any of the walls or sit in the room very well so its awkwardly plunked in the middle of the room for now. The corner turtle tank has a nice home in the corner though. Its pulled out from the wall at the moment while we paint and do skirting boards then it will be pushed back (which is why it is currently sat on an old sofa throw, so we can move it around easily without scratching the floors).
These photos were taken on the day I did the white coat and caulked around the moulding, hence the roller tray, caulk and random loo roll being out!
Into the current after/during/probably still mostly before photos! The biggest difference in here I think has been the flooring. We went for laminate flooring through the downstairs rather than the dark carpets that were in here and its made such a difference in how light the space is and ties in the hallway and porch with the living room making it seem more spacious.
Colour wise we went for a light grey in this room, it doesn't get the most light as its north facing so we really wanted quite a light colour to keep it from being too gloomy. The colour is "Goose Down" from Dulux. I got the nice bright white curtains from a charity shop but they are Ikea. I had originally planned to go for a darker more petrol blue type tone in here (you can see some of the tester patches in the before photos) but it just came out too dark for the room. I don't mind it because in the summer it keeps the living room and bedroom quite cool and it means we have a south facing sunny garden and kitchen, but this room really does not get a lot of direct sun.
In here we need to do skirting boards (as every other update has said, they are in progress now as you can see by some of these after photos) and do something about the ceiling. The ceiling will probably need to be reskimmed but we will see if maybe some specialist paint can help. It was wallpapered over and was in rough shape underneath so at the moment we have just painted it white and try not to look at it. We also really need to change that light fixture, the chandelier with plastic jewels mounted off centre on a circular ceiling rose thing isn't quite our style. A few people have commented that they like it, so any takers for it let us know!
I think we will paint the fireplace and keep it for now until we get into phase 2 of the house (doing things because we want to rather than we have to), but eventually the fire will need to be replaced too as it is pretty old and doesn't work overly well. We've had it serviced and checked and its safe to use, it just takes forever to light it, its not overly pretty and the front panel keeps falling off.
Then the main thing is changing the sofa as the one we have just does not fit this room. We are thinking a more standard 3 piece suite with a 3 or 4 seat sofa on the wall between the two doors, a smaller one under the window and then maybe an armchair and footrest next to the turtle tank. We need to do that really before we do much else like getting end tables, lamps, putting up artwork etc as the placement of the TV, artwork, tables, the turtle tank etc all depend on what sofa we get and now that changes the layout of the room. I would also like to add some built in shelves to the alcoves once we decide where the TV is going to end up.
Hopefully we will get the sofa soon, its just not necessarily a priority money wise when there is so much else to do. We have been moving along with the skirting boards so hopefully soon we will be able to push the turtle tank back into the corner which will open the room up a bit more too and make everything look slightly less odd!
Comments
Post a Comment