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| When the house was built, the current living room was two rooms. The ceiling was also about 14 inches higher. Whether it was lowered to cover up a crumbling plaster and lathe ceiling, the support beam, or to reduce heating cost, we don't know. We do know that the popcorn ceiling was ugly and flaking off. The lowered ceiling was making the room feel like it was closing in on itself (which wasn't as much of a issue in the other rooms). | |
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| The windows on the west side of the house didn't close. The air conditioning unit in the middle of the wall (above) was hideous and had to go. Another weird thing about the living room was this hole where a wood stove used to connect into the chimney. Whenever the furnace went on, it roared past this opening like an organ pipe. The first night we were in the house, we peeled back a corner of the carpet and found red oak underneath - at least that was something. | |
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| For the first year or so, we didn't work much on the living room. The air conditioner patch became the place where we put leftover easy sand, and the rest of the room became a storeroom for all our tools and drywall. Then we tackled the ceiling. Erik came over to help Colin rip down the ceiling. All the drywall, plaster, and lathe made a huge dusty mess. | |
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The large beam across the middle of the room is where the house
originally had a wall separating the room into two. The room must
have been made into one large room about the time of the second
addition, since the arched doorway would have been right in the middle
of the wall. Other houses in the neighborhood still have two
separate rooms. Colin removed all the old wires and ran wires to the new fixtures. Dad raised some of the plumbing up to just below the joists. Colin insulated all the pipes and put up fiberglass insulation. Colin filled in the gap between the dropped ceiling and the newly raised ceiling with drywall. |
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There was an arched doorway separating the living room from the back of the house. I think we had gotten used to it and didn't give it much thought (plus the house Alyssa grew up in had an arch). It struck us that the arch did not flow with the architecture of the rest of the house and had to go. We were surprised what a big difference it made in opening up the hallway. |
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We took the opportunity of hanging a new drywall ceiling to improve the
insulation. We don't want to hear the would be tenants upstairs.
Colin installed rubberized sound clips to the joists, then he clipped in
hat channels. The drywall was screwed into those channels. Hanging the 16 foot drywall was easy using the panel lifter from Home Depot. |
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| After we hung the drywall, Alyssa mudded the joints and Colin sanded (team effort). We painted the ceiling and walls (Benjamin Moore Cornsilk). Dad ripped up the carpet, exposing the beautiful oak floor underneath. The floor was in great condition. He filled some of the holes and then sanded the floor. He also began working on the wainscoting. |
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