After: Living Room

Prior to the renovation, the living room looked a little dated and fell a little flat.  It featured off-white wall to wall carpet, off-white silk drapes, and a lot of off-white furniture upholstery, with green, gold and orange accents. The antiques were notable, but the room was not very striking.

Now, with new wood floors, new upholstered pieces, new plantation shutters, antique substitutions, and other accents like new lampshades, the room has a fresh, modern feel while maintaining the elegance the room calls for:

Surprise: You're Replacing The Living Room Floor!

As with any renovation, there have been surprises:  some pleasant, some, not so much.  In the category of not very great surprises, Jane and Van recently learned that they're going to be replacing all of the wood flooring in the living room.

As background, when the house was first built, the living room was two separate rooms.  A recently uncovered old photograph shows that a fireplace was part of the wall separating the two spaces.  Sometime in the late 1940's or 1950s, the fireplace was removed and the rooms combined into one.  Apparently the floor was patched at that time, though not very well...

In removing all of the wall to wall carpet, the contractors noticed the seems and patchwork of flooring where the wall once stood.  The flooring contractor determined that patching the floor would not work in this instance, and recommended replacing all of the hardwoods in the living room.  

During: Millwork Detail

Below are a few up-close photographs of the beautiful millwork in the living room.  The photographs show preparations underway for the room to be painted.