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Living Renovation Before and After

We’ve renovated, top to bottom, the little brick cottage. Here is the living room renovation before and after.

Taking it back to the beginning, here are a couple of pics showing before and after. On the left is what it looked like the day we bought this brick house in December, 2011, and on the right is what it looks like now:

These are taken from the arch doorway between the living room and dining room looking Southwest.

And this angle is in the middle of the living room looking toward the gorgeous curved wall with the dining room on the right and front entry on the left.

Here, in a nutshell is what we did to get ourselves to this point of a finished room, in about 3 months:

  • Carpet: all gone
  • Wood floors: refinished
  • Wallpaper: gone
  • Plastic trim at the ceiling covering a big gap between wall and ceiling: gone
  • Old cracked windows: gone and replaced
  • Missing trim from windows: replaced
  • Dingy Radiators: cleaned and repainted
  • Plaster walls and ceiling: patched, skimcoated, primed and painted
  • Old brown trim: primed and painted

Doesn’t look like much written on this, but it was a lot of work, and I didn’t even mention replacing and updating all the electric in this room as well as the whole brick cottage.  Here are a few pics of the progress along the way:

At the top you see it with the carpet in, then these two bottom pics show the carpet ripped out. All along the West wall in the living room, there were 2 strips of flooring missing, also you can see how the old finish bonded with the rubber padding that was on it, so it had to be sanded in the refinishing process.

In this pic you can appreciate the wallpaper removal and sort of see how now that the brown plastic trim haphazardly installed at the ceiling has been removed to reveal the large gap it was covering.

And see the trim missing from the top of the windows? Sadly, that’s what we found when we removed the box cornices installed in the 1970’s. As bad as this picture looks, there was still one more step that made the room look even worse!

This pic shows it at its worse! When they replaced the windows, all the trim from the windows needed to come off, that’s it, piled on the floor. At this point my husband had still not stepped foot into the cottage, he had totally trusted me to select, purchase and re-do this piece of property. I must admit, I slightly panicked at the thought of him seeing it in this condition, it was not for the faint of heart, that’s for sure!

Whew! Off with the old, and on with the new! This pic shows it in the stage with the floors refinished, the walls patched, skimcoated and primed, the new trim on the windows, and everything ready for me to paint.

Here’s that curved wall, showing the top gap at the ceiling all patched up!

And now all painted!

This is looking toward the front entry from the center of the living room, it was here to the left along the floor where those missing floor boards were…can’t tell now, can you?

Even though I was sad the day the all the old trim had to come off, along with all the old windows, I love the new farmhouse styled trim, and the sacrifice of the old trim to gain working, insulated windows was well worth it.

From the front entry, this gorgeous maple floor beacons you to come in. We were so fortunate to find quality wood under all the carpeting and linoleum flooring when we tore it out.

One last look of the living room…aiming toward the dining room, and beyond….

Here are more posts featuring this little brick cottage renovation projects:

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. Nellie says

    Oh Wow, you have been very busy, cause that is a lot of sweat equity represented there. The results are beautiful, hope I get to see how you decorate it.
    You should be very proud of this accomplishment!!!!

    My floors are the same color and I have wanted to paint
    our walls that same shade of yellow, so it was nice to see how it looks, and now I am sure I want to paint that color, really looks lovely.

    Have a great week ahead,
    Blessings, Nellie

    Reply

  6. kristin says

    I just sent this to my sister. Their wood floors are in the exact same shape, this will give her hope. the room looks fabulous!! Wonderful job!
    XO

    Reply

  8. debbiedoos says

    Beautiful, so bright and cheery now. I love yellow. Thanks so much for sharing with the newbie party. Not sure if I missed my link, but I did not see it. Thanks.

    Reply

  11. Erica says

    WOW! You have done some hard work! No one truly understands how hard {the stuff you did} is unless they do it themselves. I swear I could have pulled out my hair from wallpaper and wall damage. LOOKS GREAT!

    Reply

  12. Peggy Hale says

    Wow! What a difference! I love the bright white and yellow you chose its so fresh and cheerful. That was a lot of work but you did a great job. Thanks for sharing.

    Reply

  16. Sharon ت says

    You know how I feel about this home…I fall more in love with it every time you show another reveal. The architecture is so gorgeous. I’ll be really curious to see how your renters decorate it. If we don’t like it, we’ll kick them out, right? LOL!
    Thank you for giving me another peek at the little brick cottage at Show & Tell.

    sharon @ mrs. hines class

    Reply

  21. Anne says

    How happy you must be that the worst is over!! The white trim and brighter walls has made such a huge difference in the quality of light in the room. That archway is to die for!

    Great job, kudos to you!!

    xox

    Reply

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