More 'Old' Renovations

Are you sick of renovation pictures yet?  This is a renovation we started last summer and 'finished' around Christmas time.  I'm just a little slow about blogging about it.  This is a picture of the living room before we moved in.  All the lovely Aztec wallpaper was taken off almost as soon as we moved in, as well as the lovely valances and blinds. (That carpet actually looks decent in this picture.  You should see it now, it's disgusting.  You'll see why soon.)

 We took out the bar area. We were hoping to take out that wall to the left, but found out it's a baring wall.  That's why the ceiling is torn apart - we had to figure out if it could be removed.

Ta-da.  The yucky bar is gone.  There is a closet door inside on the right.  We moved the wall over a little and moved the door to the outside.  Took out the old plumbing and patched the walls.  We also removed the pocket door (left of the clock going to the extra bedroom and bathroom) and moved that doorway over some.

 Then the ambitious project began.  I had this idea a year or so after we moved in, to remove the fireplace (we never used it, and really don't need one here).  We had other projects going on (remember our master bath remodel), so we kept putting this off.  One day while we were swimming, Adam decided today was the day and started tearing it out (September 3rd).  He knows that I would just keep putting it off, because I'm never ready for the mess it will bring.  I love to think up the design, and love the end result, and I really don't mind DOING the in between parts, but the mess getting from point A to point B drives me crazy.  I've actually gotten really relaxed about it now - lots of practice. :)

 We gave the pellet stove to a friend in our ward for his cabin. Then Adam got the faux rocks off the entire thing with a jack hammer.  We invited our friends over to come swimming, and then he ended up helping Adam with the bricks. Nice friends. I had black soot and brick dust ALL OVER.  It was a mess. It's good for me to look back at the process to appreciate where we are now.

 Our house is one big hazard after another.  Just in this picture we have sharp brick pieces, gas line exposed, protruding re-bar, nails, open chimney and an unstable brick wall.......with children in the middle of it.  

 

The kids thought it was awesome to be in the playroom and be able to peak through to the living room. 

 One day while Adam was at work, and Noah and Ava were at school, Grant and I decided to see if we could get the wall to fall down.  We pounded out a few more brick rows and then with one hit, the wall came tumbling down.  Grant was pretty nervous about the whole thing. His narration is pretty funny.

The fireplace in shambles.  We had a few of these piles out back.  We had to haul all of this again out front to a trailer to take to the dump. The kids loved it (especially Grant).  They filled their dump trucks with bricks and wheeled them out front to the trailer.

Aw, nice.  All clean....'ish.  Still had the gas line, re-bar, and chimney exposed.  The kids loved having it open to the playroom.  I think they played in there way more after the wall was gone.

The chimney got closed up and Adam sealed off the opening on the roof, so no water will come through the wall. 

After the wall was removed I had this idea to put in a murphy bed.  We could use part of the opening so the bed wouldn't stick out so far into the playroom/guest room.  The opening was exactly the width we needed to fit a queen bed there.  Seriously, we had less than 1/2" to spare. I also made Adam come up with an idea of how to make this work without having to buy the expensive mechanisms for the bed. I'll post about that another time, maybe when we work on the guest room.  Currently it's being occupied by Eli.

Skipping to the old bar area....... finished texturing and painting the walls.  Still have a few patches we need to fix.  Added a desk top, hung the door to the closet, moved and changed the light, and put on the stainless steel countertop.

 

We really like having the desk space here, and I love how it turned out.  

Still need to add some shelves above the desk, door casing and baseboards, and obviously new flooring sometime. 

Adam built me shelves in the closet. I downsized all my scrapbooking and sewing stuff to fit in there.  We also have all our arts and crafts and computer and electronic components in the closet, so they don't clutter up the desk.  When the kitchen is done, I plan on moving a few things out of there so it's not so packed.

Back to the fireplace wall.  After quite a few nagging phone calls to our cabinet guy, we finally got this installed (the day before Christmas Eve).  We told him it needed to be in by Thanksgiving, but of course it wasn't.  We really just needed the hole to be closed up, so Eli could have a little privacy.  It was like this (no drawer fronts or trim for awhile longer). We also finished up texturing and painting (walls and ceiling) in here.

 

This is how it looks now (well not NOW, the kitchen is no longer there), but the computer area and entertainment center looks like this. We finished these projects around January.

 I planned on putting all my DVD's in those drawers, but then Eli moved in and made us a cool computer that holds all of our movies.  I was able to put the movies outside in a bin and use the drawers for toys.  I was able to fit the majority of the toys, books and games in the cupboards and drawers.  We still need to add handles, but I'm waiting to see what we pick for the kitchen.  We LOVE that it's pretty much done down here, and love how it turned out. It really opens up the living room a ton.