New House - Week 3

The living room is almost done!

The sconces are out being rewired & should be done in about two more weeks. We also have a new smaller couch on order which should arrive in 2 to 4 more weeks. We've been wanting to replace this one & its slightly too big for the living room. We also need some art on the walls.

We also got a fancy new flat screen tv. Matt is totally entranced by the HD.
We had the chimney cleaned & inspected this week.

As we feared we need to replace the flue liner. Apparently this is very common for houses from the 30's & 40's since the mortar they used was water soluble. The liner itself is fine but all the mortar is gone at the seams & there is no way to just fill the seams. So we have three options replace the liner ($5000+), get a gas fireplace insert or a wood bringing insert (sort of like a wood burning stove set into your fireplace). We've decided to have the fireplace converted to gas. Its much better for the environment (new construction here isn't even allowed to have wood burning fireplaces anymore) & its much more heat efficient plus I love the ease of flipping a switch & having a fire. The gas company just happened to be offering 50% off installation through November 11th so timing was perfect. Our new fireplace will be installed week after next.
I've started on the yucky yellow bathroom. Pictures don't even show how bad this color or paint job is.

I especially love the homemade cabinet.

It didn't even have a back, just the wall. Best of all there had been a wallpaper border which the last owners painted over. They didn't just paint over it though first the tried ripping it off, even used a tiger in some place & then they gave up & just painted, right over all the ragged wallpaper edges & they didn't take the mirror or cabinet down before painting either. So I spent many hours getting that wallpaper off, In one spot it took all 76 years of paint off with it. Now 76 years of paint means lead paint & I'm not messing with trying to get that off everywhere. Today was spent plastering & putting up a skim coat to cover the lines between where they did & didn't paint last time.

I really thought this was going to be the easy room & I'd be showing you finished pictures today. Tomorrow I'll finish sanding the walls & recoat where I need to. Then I'll prime to help get a smoother finish. This weekend the walls will get painted Lenox Beige & we put up a new medicine cabinet with mirror, a towel bar & a new toilet seat. My Mom & Dad will have a lovely fresh bathroom when they visit at Thanksgiving. Now as for the guest room I can't promise anything....