The kitchen and Master bath projects I've already outlined will make the rest seem like a cake walk. In this post I will share what we plan to do in our living room, which is mostly just cosmetic.
First, the living room area is highlighted in yellow:
You have seen the living room before, but these photos are of what it looks like currently with our own furniture:
This room presents some layout challenges. Maybe I'll share that another day and get some feedback.
For now, first on the list:
1. Flooring. This wool carpet is in the best shape of all the carpet in the house (except the bit that is patched under the piano leg), but it is also original to the house and I think it is ready to retire. I would like to put hardwood in this room—the same hardwood that we would lay in the den and master bedroom.
2. Window treatments. What does a person do on windows this big? Obviously the treatments that are there were quite pricey to install. There is lighting behind the cornice piece even. I am leaning toward simple roller solar blinds—something that won't impede the view—and going without curtains.
3. Strip wallpaper and paint. And this is the hard kind of wallpaper to remove. It will be a job. We also intend to scrape the popcorn off the ceiling in every room and replace the trim. (Much of the trim needs replaced or patched anyway because the heat registers were removed and left gaps.)
4. On the back wall in the photo above I would absolutely love to have a whole wall of built in bookcases, with cupboards on the bottom to store games.
5. Leading back into the bedrooms, we already removed a bookcase that was sticking out (before, left) to open up the traffic flow so it could go behind the seating area rather than through it.
6. I would like to replace the sconces you see above. The lighting on the other side behind the cornice will have to be removed. It isn't pretty enough to be exposed, and there isn't enough room for sconces above the window. Therefore, I will have to have another light source in this room. Lamps on switches, perhaps? Can lights? I know they say overhead lighting in a living room is not ideal . . .
I should mention that I haven't done much in the way of decorating yet, aside from hanging a few random things on hooks that already existed.
7. The fireplace would look (and be) fabulous with a new gas insert. It isn't operable at the moment. It has a gas (or propane) log in it currently, but there is a leak that makes it unsafe to use.
Wow. Listing it all out like that makes it sound a little more complex than I thought. One thing at a time, right?