Living Room Progress

We are getting really close as far as the living room goes and the pictures aren't quite as drastic as the kitchen ones, but I'd still thought I would share how far we have come and how far we still have yet to go.

This was the kitchen after we first got into the house (minus carpet). The first night they went in and pulled all of the carpet out of the living room, office, and bedroom and then thought to take of before pictures. I can't complain though, Dave is pretty terrific for taking any before pictures! I'm so happy he did! You can see in these pictures the beautiful (ha) wallpaper border around the top of the walls, the really nice blue curtains, and the off white walls. 

This room quickly became the hub of the housework. All equipment was mainly kept in here as well as a few chairs for us to sit in and a temporary desk for Dave to work at. I was still living with Erin in our apartment at this point but I spent a lot of time either sitting in those chairs unsure of how to help or up and working. You can see some of the thoughts the boys had about opening up the living room to the kitchen even more. There were many thoughts about how to make the house feel bigger and how to maximize storate, since it is so small.

At this point we had:
-scrubbed the wall paper border off
-sanded all of the floors (and stained them)
-opened up the doorway between the kitchen and the living room
-taken down those blue curtains and the curtain hardware

We are missing tons of photos of this stage in the house (that or we didn't take very many, though I am pretty sure I took a few. Perhaps I deleted them when cleaning out my photos (a pretty good guess). At this point we had moved in to the house and it was most definitely after our wedding (which was when a lot of work stopped for a little while, understandably. We were still building our household as far as furniture goes, we didn't even have a real chair for the living room and for awhile we used the coffee table as our T.V. stand. But, it felt like home and we were glad to be in there together. 

At this point we had:
-stained all of the floors dark brown
-moved all of our college/post college furniture in
-painted all of the walls and ceiling white
-put in new white baseboards 
-finished off the opening between the kitchen and the living room (though you can see the window idea did not end up going through)
-replaced all of outlet and light switch covers
-replaced all of the vents

This is how our living room is now, and how it has been for quite some time. We have updated a few things and added in some decorations. There is even a chair for us to sit in! Which, when you have a dog who likes to sprawl out on the couch and another who thinks he should be allowed on the couch, provides some much needed extra space. Not much work has been done as far as the shell of the living room is concerned though it is the room that probably needs it the least. We did get in and paint the trim in that little hallway which makes the view nicer but there is still more to do and buy. 

We still need to:
-order and replace the living room blinds (aren't the mix matchy ones cute- no)
-paint the window trim
-paint the front door and trim
-install a shelf above the T.V. 
-hang up curtain rods and curtains
-replace a few items of furniture (end tables, coffee table, entryway table, etc)