Family Room Progress Report

Family Room Progress Report

Ugh. You guys. What a week. After the horrible day we had Monday, Joey came down with a cold on Tuesday, and now all three of us are sick! Andy is currently at the doctor, Joey is napping and I am sniffling at the computer. Can we please just catch a break please? The good news is it’s Friday, yay!

I wanted to show you all a little update on what’s happening in our family room. This is what it looked like a couple months ago when we did the home tour:

About a month ago, Andy had a random day off and we decided to rip out the built-ins on either side of the fireplace, which have always annoyed us. They felt too big, dark and heavy, especially since this room is already so dark. Taking them out would be no big deal, right? Easy peasy, right? Of course not. Nothing is ever as easy as I think it will be.

We assumed the built-ins were attached directly to the drywall, because that would be normal. But turns out the installer (in 1970, someone had painted on the back of the cabinets) attached them to boards that were screwed into the original wall, and then they only drywalled under the cabinets halfway up the wall. Huh? I’m sure it made sense at the time. And well, I guess it saved them the hassle of drywalling. Because that’s no fun.

At first we decided to just add a piece of drywall to cover the hole, so Andy started to reinforce the wall with new 2x4s to have something to screw the sheet of drywall into (you can see that on the left above and in the photo below). But then we thought, while the wall is open, we should have electrical outlets added and hardwire for new sconces. It’s the kind of thing that we’d probably end up regretting not doing while we have the opportunity. But it’s also beyond our skill level to do ourselves.

I can’t imagine many colors that would clash more with the dark browny red fireplace than this bright red paint that was covered by the built ins! That red part of the wall is also textured, while the rest of the wall is smooth, so we’ll need to skim coat it when the new drywall goes on.

Our original plans for the room:

Last weekend we also took down the old ceiling lights to install new ones, which we figured would be another easy project. HA! The lights that were here were jimmy-rigged old pocket lights that apparently are just a big old electrical mess — and again, beyond our scope to fix.

Our contractor said it will be “several weeks” before he can come out. You may not know this about me but I AM NOT PATIENT! We can’t paint the room or replace the lights of rearrange furniture or do almost anything at all until the electrical and drywall are done. BUT we can paint the fireplace! I’m so excited to start on that … as soon as everyone is better!