May 23, 2009

The Living Room

So. The biggest problem with the living room was this awful pink carpet. ...

Living Room BeforeNot that I have anything against pink, it just isn't in my color scheme.

We peeked underneath, and decided to pull it up.

Living Room AfterThe hardwood floor is in pretty good shape. However, it was pretty dirty. I had used Murphy's Wood Oil Soap on the wood floors in the sun room and the spare room, but this floor had some areas that looked like the dirt was ground in.

I decided to try a tip from the March 2009 issue of This Old House Magazine. I mixed the Murphy's with equal parts of paint thinner, applied it to the floor with a paint brush and wiped it off. I don't know how visible the results are, but man were my wipe-up rags every filthy!

Now let me take a step back and give you a counterclockwise look around the room......

Obviously that's the front door, which leads out onto the screened in front porch. The fireplace is double sided, so that there is another hearth in the bedroom, which you can see on the extreme right. Unfortunately, these are not in working condition, as the chimney is not lined. Lining it is a possibility ... more on that at a future date.

This is a step to the left of the front door. The windows look out onto the front porch. Left of these, are the doors to what will be my studio.

The living room measures approximately 16 x 16 feet. The ceiling and walls are plaster, which was painted white in fairly recent years. I've detected that same green (as in the spare room) underneath the white paint.

This is the former sun room, claimed for my weaving studio space.

The doors on the right are to my studio, the ones on the left open up to the dining room.

On right, doors to dining room, the French door in the middle leads to the hallway, and on the left to our bedroom. (Confused? Me too. See Floor Plan to put it all together.)

This summer fireplace cover is pretty. Unfortunately, whoever laid the carpet drove the nails right through the concrete hearth.


I also like the ceiling light fixture. It too was pretty grungy, but cleaned up very well.

Slowly the place is cleaning up. I admit that I'm cleaning faster than I'm blogging about it :) It's fun to share this with you all however, and I appreciate all your comments!


8 comments:

bspinner said...

I'm so glad you included a floor plan. Sure is confusing without it. The French doors are very nice but I've never seen so many doors before. I'm sure your floors will be beautiful. At any rate a hole lot better than the pink which should probably be in a girls room.

Happy the cats enjoy their new space.

Theresa said...

shestrOh my, that is a lot of doorways! Do have any plans to take some off or leave them open. Big improvement getting the pink carpet out. I like pink, I painted our bedroom pink, but pink living room carpet falls under the "What where they thinking" catagory IMHO. Hardwood floors are so much nicer to have. Pity on the fireplaces. Can you put a wood stove in and metal pipe instead of clay liners? You could probably heat most of the house with a wood stove. Handy for cooking too if you ever lose power. Thak you for taking the time to update us all on progress. It's almost as exciting as moving myself and not near as much work! ;-)

Leigh said...

When I wrote this post I realized how difficult it was to describe the layout without that floor plan. Thanks to Theresa for suggesting it!

I think they used to put doors to every room before central heat and A/C came along. It was possible to keep the heat in the rooms where it was needed. We haven't decided what to do about all those doors yet.

Theresa, we've been thinking along the same lines in regards to the fireplace. We've ordered a soapstone stove, which should be here next week. We're going to have a fireplace / chimney expert come take a look and see if we can't do exactly as you suggest. Oh, and if you ever miss the work part, you're welcome to come spend a couple of weeks helping us :)

Woolly Bits said...

huh, whoever put the pink carpet into the room with the brick fireplace - must have had problems with the eyesight:)) I don't know - carpet was all the rage some time back, but I love hard wood floors and would rather put a rug down if necessary than cover it all with yucky carpets:(( good luck with the chimneys - we had to put flue lining in all our chimneys, but now everything works well. we did put stoves in though - even though they are not quite as romantic as an open fire, they are safer and far more economical anyway!

Michelle said...

I love French doors, and although our house has a great room and therefore not a lot of doors, I like the option of having them open or closed. I can picture myself very happy in your new home; it has a lot of character!

Jackie said...

Oh Leigh! I am so happy for you! YOur new house looks WONDERFUL!!!!! I really wonder about the type of people who would cover hardwood with (gasp)pink carpet, AND who would drive nails into the hearth to do it!
I'm sure that you will bring the house back to its former glory!
You really have been up to a lot since I last stopped by!

M.K. said...

I LOVE looking inside people's houses when they are planning renovations! It's so fun. You have lots of French doors, and they are so pretty. I'm wondering about the functionality of that hallway. You could probably do without it, and some of your rooms would be larger, if you could remove one hallway wall. Thanks for sharing all these plans -- I know they are years old, and I'm wondering what you have done with all these rooms.

Leigh said...

It looks totally different now! My tab at the top of the page "Remodeling" is it's own blog about our plans, steps, and results. I confess I'm a bit behind on that one, the front porch especially needs to be included. Actually, you've given me the idea to link to that in these posts. To see what we did with the hallway, click here