Living Room Redo

After many LONG years of waiting, we finally are getting our living room redone.  This room hasn't really been touched since we moved in.  I painted the two short walls green about 2 years after we moved in, but I wasn't able to paint the cathedral walls, because they were just too tall.  All that is on there is primer and, after living here for 12 years, that primer is beat the heck up!  Not to mention how all the drywall tape, along all of the seams, has been peeling and I mean peeling really badly!  So, we worked last weekend to get everything out of the room to be ready for Janee to start working on it this past Tuesday.

Noah wanted to help his dad climb the ladder and get things off the plant shelf, once we moved all the furniture out of there.  He's braver than I am!

We moved all the furniture into every available room - mostly on the main level, with just a couple chairs in the basement.  This is our kitchen right now.  Not really easy to maneuver around, but we're making it work.  It's only a couple weeks, right?  The tv is in Noah's room, which he is loving.  It's not hooked up to anything, but the Wii U, but they are all having a great time hanging out on Noah's bed and playing. :-)

I don't know if you can see the tape peeling in the picture above.  It's almost completely loose and it was like that on every seam.  It looked AWFUL!

I finally saved enough money to get it done.  I asked a friend of mine if she could recommend someone and she did.  I found out later, once I met her, that it was my former ZUMBA coach. :-) She's so nice and I've been so comfortable having her here working.  And, so far, I am really, really pleased with her work!  You'll see on the first day she was able to rip out all of the old tape.  It was peeling so badly that it was pretty easy to take down.  She just grabbed an end and it would come off in long strips.  This is the top of our ceiling.

You can kind of see it better here.  They had 2 layers of tape up there, so once it was taken out, it left big treads.  She will probably mud it one more time on Monday, because it left such a thick gap there.

Each night, after she finished that day's work, we would vacuum up all the crumbling pieces and get the floor cleaned up again.  Noah worked on Tuesday night taking down an old Uppercase Living Expression, and helped me take off all the outlets and light switch covers.

For the past three days, she's worked on putting up new tape and mudding it all.  She likes to do three layers of mud to make sure it's really secure and lasts longer.

This is a picture from today.  All the mudding is done, with the exception of the very top of the ceiling that might take another coat on Monday.  Next week, she'll start sanding it all and then painting.  I can't wait!

It's coming together so nicely and looks so new and clean, just like it was when we moved in.  And, look!  Tater is back home!  He spent the week at the Walkers, aka our babysitters, so he wouldn't be in the way with all the mess.  He seems to enjoy the big, open room - unlike Olive who is terrified of the ladders and will claw her way out of your arms if you even attempt to bring her upstairs. :-)

So, that is the update of our room so far.  Really looking forward to sharing our "Before" and "After" pictures next week.  We won't have any Property Brothers makeovers or anything, but it'll look really nice, I'm sure.  At least it will to those of us that have stared at the grossness of it for a decade!