Making This House Home....

These past few weeks I've been busy giving the living room a new look. It was a lot of work and I gained a few calluses, but it was well worth it.

 The initial look of the room was this.

(Note: The picture on the left is from the previous owners because I failed to get a before picture from that angle)

As you can see, there is not a lot of color. This is tragic in my opinion since I am a firm believer that color almost always makes the the world a better place. Unfortunately, this tragedy isn't confined to the living room either, every single wall in this place was that nondescript cream color. For right now, however, the living room is my focus.

 The other major problem I was faced with was that were too many different woods going on. 

There was the floor, the wood paneling, the entertainment center, the piano, the piano stool, and each bookshelf, all different wood stains. (That's seven different wood stains in one room in case you were keeping track)

So that was my first project to tackle.

Painting the entertainment center was easy. It didn't even require sanding. I just rolled on an oil-based coat of paint to completely transform it.

The two bookshelves were much trickier. Because they are laminated wood, I had to sand the laminate right off down to the particle board below. This took a lot more back work and several days to finally finish just that first step of sanding them down.

Fortunately Dad and the Bug were there to help out on occasion. I applied oil based primer and paint to come out with an awesome result.

You'll see that I also painted the piano stool to match as well.

Now all the faux wood furniture match tying the room together nicely so that it no longer feels like the hodgepodge of second hand furniture it very well is.

As the above pictures have indicated, the next thing I did was add color to the walls.

It's always a little tricky picking out a color from a paint swatch and imaging how it's going to look once it is one the walls. Lighting makes all the difference.

I was extremely pleased with how it all turned out. Alongside all the wood paneling and wood trim (original to the house back in 1950 btw) the green looks fantastic. The room now has a warm glow while keeping the integrity of natural feeling colors.

One day I'll replace that couch, but in the meantime it's that much easier to call this home.