The Living Room

Ugh.... The Living Room is shaping up to be more challenging than the kitchen!

The Living Room is a great space. It is a big room with a semi-vaulted ceiling and a fireplace... good bones, ya know... good bones.

Originally, the fireplace was flanked with these awful built-ins that were saggy, ugly and just structurally unsound to say the least. The walls under them show signs of there being built in cabinets, but they have been removed. In thier place is cheap panelling, obviously put there to cover some blemishes in the walls behind... or so we thought. Turns out the paneling was put there to cover the actual framework with very little or no sheet rock behind it in some places.

So... we had to do some demo. On the oppositte side of the room there was this terrible little built-in bar. After tearing the dry-wall out from behind it we realized that at one time it was a wet bar, but the pipes have since been capped off. Additionally, the room was covered in blank faceplates where something used to be but is no more - these all had to go. So we put up new walls, sans holes.

Now that the walls were put up and spackled and sanded, we switched gears to the fireplace. Originally, the fireplace was a flat-panel brick with a cheap wooden mantle floating mounted to the face. Being from So Cal, I really like the california casual look... the light, breezy colors, natural stone, woods, etc. So, we decided to build a framework around the existing fireplace in the shape we wanted, frame it, wire it, cement it and finally stucco it! I'll bring some L.A. vibes into this house if it kills me! We also cut holes and fed our cords for the plasma through so we wouldn't have to deal with dangling wires. So far, it turned out to be a brilliant idea...

So, this weekend will be the final weekend for the livingroom, (maybe). We have one more coat of cement, two coats of stucco, painting the walls and installing the floors and trim... let's see what the weekend brings :)