Family room minus paneling.

So, when we bought this house, there was a room that connected to garage and main hallway.

This room was huge and really outdated. Paneling from head to toe and and painted concrete floors.
All of the angles are extremely weird and there are doors and windows on every wall. Oh yeah, and let's not forget the popcorn ceiling. Complete disaster but could become a great family room with a lot of work.

Sooo where do you start in a room like this?? Floors? Ceiling? Paneling?

Well, no matter where you start, you have to get the old stuff out before you can get the new stuff in...

So demolition took maybe 2 hours! So fast and easy. The clean up...not so much. I felt like the room was never going to get cleaned. So much dust and debri. HEAVY sheetrock. Tons of nails. You get the picture.

Well after we ripped out the ceiling. It started raining. and of course....THERE WAS A LEAK. So before we put up brand new sheetrock and everything, we had to call roof repair companies and get estimates to repair the flat roof above the room. We ended up going with Metro Gutter in Alexandria, VA. They did great work and got it done fast.

So 3 weeks before Thanksgiving, we offered to host the family gathering at our house. Which meant we wanted that room done before then. Mind you, there is no flooring, no walls, no ceiling. Not to mention paint, furniture, etc.

Before, the room only had an ancient ceiling fan and 2 wanna be recessed lights. HAHA John wanted 9 recessed lights in the room and he did an excellent job with it. It is nice to have a guy that can do stuff like that.

We had gotten several quotes from companies around our area. All were pretty much the same but Innovative Inc. said they could get the whole job done in 3 days! I couldn't believe it! They quoted us on Friday and started work Monday. They were done with everything but the trim on Wednesday afternoon. These guys were fast.


Next step was to paint...we wanted something fun and modern. We went with 'Cinnamon Red' and 'Classic Taupe' I spent my whole day Thursday painting the entire room. Ceiling, Walls, and that incredibly awful blue door.

Next, John spent the entire weekend before Thanksgiving laying floor. We were originally going to do stained concrete but after wasting nearly our whole day Friday and spending a couple hundred on tool rentals from Home Depot. We decided against it. Stripping paint and sealer from concrete is doable but you will spend either $1200 for someone else to do it or about a week doing it yourself. In 4 hours, we had stripped one tiny little row of concrete.

Anyways, so we decided to go with wood flooring and John did it himself. It turned out great! Even though it was a complete pain in the ass because of the angles in the room.

Finished product turned out awesome!

The Finished Product

Back door that goes out to deck

Sitting area

Bar

Thanks for stopping by...

C

Black trim = lovin' it!

Sorry! It has been awhile! I finished painting about 2 days after the last post but then became incredibly busy!

Once the older kids are at home for the Summer, my days disappear!

Here are some pictures of the semi-finished product...

The main wall behind our bed still needs to have textured panels attached to it...but that is another story...

 Before:                                                                        After:

So we are very happy with the end result but not completely finished yet. :)

No more Pine Trim for this bedroom!

Thank GOD!

We are so happy with the result of removing the trim and replacing it with sheet rock.

Absolutely what we pictured and wanted for our room.

Although the casings for the windows have to stay in order for the windows to be functional, once they are painted, they will look chic and modern like the rest of the room.

So here is where we are at with the trim removed and it being replaced with sheet rock....

So anyways, much better. But like I said, the casings for the window still need to be updated with some fresh paint.

The color we are contemplating for the casings is  black/charcoal. (I know...a little crazy) I mean I don't think I have been in a house that has any part painted black besides maybe a door.

As for the walls, the wall behind our bed will have cement panels fastened to the wall. The rest of the walls will most likely be a grey color. We usually do deep rich colors such as plum, burgundy, or deep brown colors but with all the windows in the room, it feels like a peaceful getaway that needs an airy touch not a suffocating one. Granted any room is peaceful once the kids are asleep despite the room color. haha

Our bed is black and we have a silver color comforter with white sheets. It might be too drab or run all together, but we are pretty set on this color scheme. We shall see how it turns out. 

So I should update with pics of the paint pretty soon, I will most likely have it done in a couple of days. (I hate sitting on projects!)

C

Updating the Master Bedroom!

So. Our room is great! Absolutely love it!

There is just one little thing that is driving us bananas. THE PINE WOOD TRIM around every single window and door.

Windows/Balcony Door

Closet Doors/Balcony Door

Windows on back wall

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                   

So as you can see, there is a lot of it! And we want the modern look which is nearly impossible to achieve when you have trim surrounding literally everything.

We brainstormed and came up with several ideas. Paint the trim. Stain the trim. Put smaller trim around everything. Or simply no trim at all except the floor.

We chose the last option. This option is also the most expensive and time consuming to complete.

We removed the trim around the doors window and floor. It took about 3 hours for my husband and I to finish. That includes carrying those huge wood pieces with nails sticking out of them all the way to the garage across the house.

When we finished, I nearly had a heart attack after looking around the room and realizing what we had done. 1. We just bought this house a month ago. 2. This is one hell of a project to start with and complete. 3. Now what do we do.

So here is where we are at now...

Here is what we are going for...

Anyways so we had a professional come out and give us a quote for the work that needed to be done. We were originally going to do the work ourselves but why make it a 6-8 week job that might look okay when we could make it a 1-2 week job that will look great. The professional gave us a reasonable quote to make it look all pretty, so he starts tomorrow!

So we bought a house!

After 5 years of living in VA and renting homes, we finally did it. Let's face it. John and I have way too many kids to be renting a home and attempting to keep it nice enough through the lease to get our security deposit back in full.

Now, don't get me wrong...We like to have nice things and keep our home nice but if something breaks in a rental, like say a shelf being pulled off the wall from hanging on it or a whole top floor being flooded from putting a whole roll of toilet paper in the toilet, the urge and want to fix it isn't quite there.

For one thing, you don't feel like fixing a home that does not belong to you. Second of all, you are already paying the landlords mortgage, so you don't really have the desire to spend more money.

So anyways, our previous lease ended and we decided it was time to buy a home and make it a permanent move.

While searching on Redfin.com (awesome site with actual mls listings that you can browse for free), we found 'the one.' It stole our breath away and we were done with our search.

We decided to drive by it first before considering moving forward with it and the process of buying a home.

It was love at first site for me. It is so hard to find a modern home in Northern VA. Most of the homes in the area are a big square box, colonial, or Victorian. This house had just the look and feel that we wanted. It has the bones and potential to be that modern pad we have always wanted to own.

So we bought it!