living room: before and after

Hello, friends! I must admit that I have been pushing this post back, only because renovation posts are a little daunting to both write and photograph. Now I’m finally ready to show you our living room makeover. (This will come only mere few weeks before our kitchen makeover post, so hang on!) Above are the before pictures.

I began this renovation by ripping out the carpet, underlay, and tack strip. This actually took me two full days to do given the size of the room. I had to do it on my own as well since Geoffrey was away at the time. But between mom duties, I got it done!

What a mess. The underside of carpet was covered in dirt, which of course became airborne with each rip. The underlay was stained and smelled incredibly old, and removing the tack strip is never fun.

Yet, I was looking forward to exposing what I hoped would be hardwood floors that we could refinish. This was unfortunately not the case. Not only were there multiple holes in the floors where you could clearly see through to the basement, there was water damage, broken boards, and missing hardwood in the places where they widened the doorways. The old porch (which is now part of the living room) had no hardwood at all. Instead, it had OSB boards that were soft and moulded. It was not good.

I swept, vacuumed, and scrubbed the floors multiple times over the next few days. Then I put all of the furniture back.

Painting came next. I took my time over the next few weeks to paint the walls and ceiling white. It took three thick coats, but probably could have used four.

Next we picked out flooring from Flooring Superstores in Saskatoon. We chose a good laminate floor that was majorly discounted due to the store being down to its remaining boxes. It was only $1.65/square foot! We couldn’t have gotten a better deal than that, and it matched the surrounding floors so beautifully. We really lucked out. They brightened up the room immensely. I no longer felt guilty about not refinishing the floors underneath.

After they installed the floors, Geoffrey finally pitched in and installed the quarter round! I was so grateful to have his help. Then he painted the trim and did some finishing work to complete the room. He also hung the curtains that I purchased from Urban Outfitters. He did such a beautiful job with everything! Without him, the living room would still be unfinished.