The Living Room Project (part 1)

I mentioned in an earlier post that we were starting our new home improvement project and since then several of you have asked us about it. Well, it hasn't been going nearly as quickly as I had originally hoped so I figured I would go ahead and post a couple photos of the project (in progress). See also this post from our previous living room project.

This first photo is of our living room before the project started. For those of you unfamiliar with our house, the wall to the left of the TV nook is a closet for the room on the backside of that wall. The only access to that room is either through the garage or the sun room and therefore isn't very usable and has therefore become our "storage room". The plan was to knock out that wall and connect the living room to this other room and turn it into a more-usable space.

This second photo (please excuse the mess) shows how the living room looks as of today (July 19, 2008). We knocked out the closet wall giving the living room another 18 sq ft of floorspace. That may not sound like all that much but it already makes the living room feel noticeably roomier! Especially with the new glass French doors. Along with ripping out the closet wall, we also removed the painted-over wood paneling on that wall, and put up new drywall. We will also add new crown molding and trim, as well as a new paint job... Oh, and also two new single doors going out to the sun room.

The plan for the new "den/family room" is to also drywall that room too which is currently wood paneling & pegboard covered with painted-over wallpaper... (yeah, quite lovely isn't it?). When finished, the den will host a big storage/book shelf, a couple reading chairs computer desk, & Jane11's sewing machine & table.

Jane11 is actually on a mission trip in Peru for 2 weeks, so I'm going to try to see if I can't get this thing finished before her return... (sound familiar?) . :)