When we first moved in, we set the living room up, then very shortly after moved all of our furniture into a room downstairs that we hadn't set up yet so we could get to work in the living room.
A few of the things we want to address:
- There are no overhead lights
- The weight/pulley system on all of the windows is broken - at least a weight or two has come off on each window
- The fireplace, which I explained here
- Add crown molding
- Update the trim (I mentioned in a previous post that the sheetrock butts up to the trim instead of the trim sticking out from the wall like it normally would)
- Insulate
- Paint
- And probably 100 other things I've forgotten
We've started and stopped working on the room countless times, but have felt over the past few weeks that we have more of a game plan and can really start making progress.
So, for a status report of sorts:
The shiplap. I previously posted about finding shiplap behind the walls, and how we exposed the wall next to the fireplace, but had to figure out how to get the millions of tacks out of it. That's right: millions. Might be a slight exaggeration. Regardless, I took a small pry bar and a hammer and went after every. single. one. of those tacks and removed them. Some warm water and a rag helped me get rid of the rest of the felt, with the help of a scraper in hard-to-remove places. I am happy to report that what used to look like this...
Felt. Tacks. Yuck.
A close-up for dramatic effect
...now looks like this, and we couldn't be happier!
It's so pretty now that we can see it as a blank slate instead of with all those tacks in it
As soon as we saw how beautiful the wood was once it was cleaned off, we decided we couldn't bring ourselves to paint it. Assuming we don't run into any snags, our plan is now to polyurethane it to preserve the gorgeous patina it has developed over the past 100 years. Our plan is to add cabinets at the bottom and shelves. (Added to the growing list of things David needs to build.)
Next, we've tossed back and forth the idea of adding transoms to the two doorways in the living room. Both front entry doors have transoms, which we absolutely love. We hope to keep much of the house's original character, but also want to add some of our own in a few ways. We have decided that adding transoms is one of those ways.
David tore out the sheetrock and shiplap above the doorway between the living and dining rooms, and found the bracing is a little strange, though not uncommon for older homes. We will have to add some temporary support, reframe the doorway where the transom will go, and then add the transom. And of course tear out the sheetrock and shiplap on the other side of the wall, but we aren't in a huge rush to do that yet.
Getting above the door prepped for a transom
As I mentioned, there are no overhead lights in the living room. We have decided to add can lights and a pendant, and are leaving that work to an electrician. But, being obsessive over detail, we decided to measure and mark exactly where we want the can lights and pendant placed. So we measured (and maybe remeasured), added chalk lines, decided to change the measurements, added another set of chalk lines, and are ready for the electrician to come on Tuesday and run the wiring for the lights.
Chalk lines for the electrician to place the can lights and pendant
While we have the electrician here, we want to have all the outlets grounded in this room, and add a couple of outlets. We also have found that there's no rhyme or reason to what circuit each room is on. To get the living room outlets off also turns off part of the kitchen and part of upstairs. We'd rather have the whole living room running to one breaker, so we're having the electrician work on that as well.
Our prep for the electrician has also required us to pull down some more of some walls. When we first met with electricians about adding the lights, they were afraid we'd have to pull the entire ceiling down. We were determined to not have to do that, so have gotten creative. We pulled out two rows of shiplap around the bottom of most of the room to allow them access to the basement to run the new outlets and to re-run the existing ones.
This also gives us the opportunity to seal this space. Bryan alluded to the cold winters living in this house, and we completely understand what he means. It's natural for cold air to enter around windows and such, but what we feel are drafts. As we pulled the baseboards out, we found different temporary things stuck under them to try to combat the draft. Our plan is to use caulk and spray foam to seal the open spaces so we can hopefully put an end to the draft.
So maybe we accidentally butchered the sheetrock there. That baseboard was AWFUL to get up. It will be repaired though!
We also opened up around the ceiling in places we knew wire would need to run between joists for the can lights and pendant. Most of that will be easily covered up by the crown molding we will eventually add (and all is on interior walls). For the exterior walls, we will add the sheetrock back at the bottom and then the new baseboards.
Hopefully we have made things easier (and therefore cheaper) for our electrician to do. He is set to come on Tuesday, so hopefully I'll have an update then showing our lovely new lights, three-way switches, and grounded outlets!
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