Let's do a before and after first, and then there's more pictures of the process below.
So this is what the room looked like when we first saw the house. And except for the couch, chair, and pictures, this is what it still looked like when we first moved in:
And this is what it looks like now:
Another view. Before:
And after:
Last one. Before:
And after:
We removed the popcorn ceilings, painted the ceiling, trim, banister, and walls, replaced the ceiling fan, installed blinds, whitewashed the fireplace and painted the mantle, hung curtains, and redecorated. Phew.
This is what we were left with after we cleared out all the previous owners stuff that they had left and cleaned.
And this is the start of the renovation. We started by scraping off the popcorn ceilings.
It was tiring, messy work. First we had to spray the ceiling with water and scrape the popcorn off. Once it was dry, we fixed the imperfections in the ceiling with joint compound. When that was dry, we sanded the whole ceiling and wiped it down with tack cloths. Then we painted, which included two coats of primer and one coat of paint. (It probably should have had two coats of paint, but it was like 10:00 at night when we finished the first coat of paint, and I felt physically incapable of doing another one.) The whole ceiling process took about a week and was the longest and hardest part of the project.
We painted all the trim in the room. The trim in the whole house is that weird almond color, so we're changing it all to a crisp white. This picture, where the white trim is up against the yellowy wallpaper and trim of the kitchen, shows the contrast really well.
Painting and taping. I seriously feel like my whole life has consisted of painting at this point. I spent hours upon hours painting.
We painted the walls last, and when we went to peel the tape off the ceiling (at 11:00 at night), we discovered this:
Apparently, we didn't clean the sanding dust off the ceiling well enough, or wait long enough after painting the ceiling. I don't know, but we peeled off all the layers of primer and paint along with the painter's tape all along the edge of the living room and hallway. It was incredibly frustrating. We had to go back and put joint compound all around the edges, sand it, re-prime and paint the ceiling (using a paint shield this time instead of tape), and then touch up the edges of the wall too. Bleh.
The fireplace was the last project I tackled. This is the before:
And after. I painted the inside with high-heat paint, whitewashed the brick, and painted the mantle the same color as the wall.
And a few more after pictures just for fun. We did the whole thing in about three weeks, but it honestly felt like forever and I'm SO glad it's done. Now we just have seven more rooms to go...
