Remodeling before the Holidays. What were we thinking?

Right before Thanksgiving we took on a remodeling job.  UGH!  Talk about bad timing, right?  The more I talked with people, the more I found out that we are... NORMAL!  Seems that if you are going to undertake on a remodel project in the most lived in areas of your home, you are most likely to do it around the busiest time of year.

And it all started with the sliding door.... Why?  Because the the original was as old as the house and impossible to open to let Pepper out. 

The new door sat like this, naked with no trim for about a week. Hubby was undecided on trimming the door or just putting up drywall.  For the 8 years that we have been here, he's hated that paneling!  He opted to drywall over it so out come the cabinets...

Oh my goodness!  How awful is this!  The paneling matches the cabinets!!!  YUCK!!!  It gets even better.  Keep reading...

Look what we found after all the cabinets were out!  Oh yes!  The carpet under it matches the walls!  Can you imagine what this room must have looked like in the 70's?   BLECH!!!  We even found an outlet we didn't know existed!  SCORE!  We are already this far into it.  Yep, drywall is next.  But what if there is that slight chance that...

Hooray!  We don't need to buy drywall!!!  Yes!  There is drywall under all that ugly paneling!  It even has one cote of spackle on it.  Even better, the paneling was nailed to the wall and not glued down.  SWEET!

Luckily we had a remnant of carpeting left to replace that ugly puke brown strip.  I called our wonderful carpet guys and they came out right away to do the job.  Thank goodness.  I really didn't want to recarpet the entire room, or tile this entire section.

This is where some of that carpet came from.  We cut a pretty big piece of carpet out and replaced it with tile.  It's helped keep down on the amount of mud and dirt that gets tracked in during the winter months.

Here is the finished door complete with trim.  I love this color!

Hubby installed a ventless gas fireplace so we have an emergency back up heat source in the house.  It gets used quite often.  It's been a blessing this winter and has helped keep our heating bills down.  The TV is mounted above it.

And while this was going on... my 15 year old country style dining room suit was replaced. 

Nothing new was done to the living room.  I simply cleaned up all of my paper crafting stuff and moved it all to the office.  It was a MESS!!!  The office project is an entirely different animal to conquer. 

By December 8, it was all done.  The Christmas Tree went up.

We have a few personal touches to make in the family room.  Since this, hubby hung some shelves and some photos.  We got new end tables and a coffee table that match the fireplace.  We still need to come up with a tasteful solution for the backpacks, coats and shoes.  For now we have a coat rack, shoe rack, and area to place the back packs.  I'm still searching for the right throw pillows for the couch too.  You'll be able to see those in other photos.  All in all, we are very happy with the way it came out so far.  It one of those rooms that is usually a disaster zone, but since we updated it 2 months ago, it's been clean and tidy, less the puppy toys.

It wasn't until after this project was done that I had wished I took the before and after pictures.  I'll remember to do that next time.

Thanks for stopping by.