Another holiday break has rolled around which means it is time for me to get off of work and kick my own butt with some serious house renovations!  This year, the living room.  The before pictures make it look a little more like a dark dungeon than it really was, but not much more.  Dark paint, dark flooring and light bulbs that were a little under powered.

The remainder of the vinyl flooring came up, and the paint came down.  Originally in the house a roll on orange peel texture was added.  I don’t know if it reached the end of its life, or wasn’t mixed well or what.  It was turning to powder, and the paint would peel off in sheets if you looked at it wrong.  I peeled it all off and sanded the texture right back down to the drywall.

Lots of hole patching, and a coat of primer later and the walls are starting to look a lot nicer.  The previous owner had used a considerable number of drywall anchors for me to fill!  I was able to finish a majority of the tile in a day which meant I couldn’t do anything else… Time to go see Star Wars!

With the tile able to be walked on I finished the painting, worked on trim, and eventually did the grout.  Grout and baseboards really make the room feel like something.

There always ends up being a day of painting trim, touching up this, reinstalling covers on that and such.  Worth all the little efforts.

Finally after a little over a week of solid work we were able to push the big soft couches back into our little space.  I missed our comfortable evening hangout spot more than I thought I would.

This room feels a thousand times brighter.  The light tile, bright walls and new phillips daylight LED bulbs make it feel like a million bucks.  Not bad considering the material cost was only about 700 bucks.  Now, by contrast, our kitchen looks even worse.  Oh well, next year’s project!