Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Living room redo...



Livingroom Redo


The livingroom was painted white, had those little strips they put between the sheets of drywall and the fireplace was pretty blah.. The glass front had been broken and it looked like someone had started a fire and let it get out of control. There was soot running up the front of the fireplace and onto the ceiling.. I use dilluted TSP and scrubbed as much soot away as I could before I got started. 


A lot of Manufactured homes have little strips of wood for molding, but luckily, this one had pretty wood crown molding. I removed all of it, marking where it belonged on the backside and started ripping the little strips off the walls.. Once I had removed the crown molding, I painted the ceiling, which made a huge difference.

I decided to do the walls in this room with tongue and groove boards to give it a nice rustic look.

We already had an air compressor, so my husband decided to buy a Brad Nailer from Home Depot to make putting the wood up go much quicker.. He showed me how to use it and I went to town!! That thing was a blast to use and boy did it make the work go fast.. 


From white to wood in no time at all...
Once the wood was up, I replaced the crown molding, which was pretty easy. 

Something had to be done to spruce up that fireplace.. I tried and tried and tried to remove the mantle but it was not going to budge, so I worked around it.. I added a piece of wood across the front, 12" pieces of wood running down the front and sides and crown molding along the edge of the old mantel.. I added some decorative wood pieces to the front panel and then painted the whole thing a nice cream color.  I used a lot of scrap pieces of wood for this project so it really didn't cost much at all.. I bought the crown molding and decorative wood pieces at Home Depot.. For about $25, I completely changed the look of the fireplace..


Even though this was a working fireplace, we decided to add a Dimplex electric fireplace insert instead of burning wood in it.. We're glad we did.. It cost about $250, but was well worth the money. It warms the room quickly, runs on little electricity and looks very realistic, all without the mess of wood, soot or ash cleanup.. 


Along the center of the livingroom is the seam most manufactured homes have and a pretty ugly looking ceiling fan.. I removed the bottom row of molding and painted the seam "straw", which matches the wood perfectly. I found a high end ceiling fan at Lowes on clearance and my husband and I put it up.. I think we'd both agree this was the hardest thing we did in the house... It's a heavy fan and having to stand on ladders while holding this thing up while one of us connected the wires and attached it to the ceiling was a nightmare... We were both so tired and aching from holding our arms up that long that all we could do was laugh about how seriously stupid we must look. It probably took a couple of hours, but seemed like an entire day to get that thing up there, but it sure is much easier on the eyes... 

This is the opposite side of the livingroom, also done in the tongue and groove wood.. 

Ok...This really doesn't show much of the livingroom, but just had to include a picture of two of our beautiful granddaughters...

Update:
It's now been 7 years and I have the redo bug again... I've been redoing each room little by little over the past year and the livingroom is one of the last rooms to get done.. 
I'll be adding new pictures of the latest redo very soon...





3 comments:

  1. I want to know more about your kitchen cabinets?! Did you simply paint them? I want to do the floors to look like wood and make the cabinets look more "vintage" (aka, not blonde wood). It is hard to find anyone who has done stuff to a manufactured home, and even harder to find a contractor willing to do it. Sorry I am "anonymous"...don't know what to d about that. My name is Sheryl.

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    1. Hi Sheryl
      Yes, I did paint the kitchen cabinets.I painted everything with a primer first, then painted them with a straw color. I've since repainted them country white (if I ever get some free time, I'll be adding new pictures). It was a lot cheaper painting than putting in new cabinets! lol.. I've never had any paint chip off and I wipe them down often. I think the primer is the key to getting the paint to stick correctly.
      Your ideas sound very pretty.. I hope it all turns out great...

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  2. I read your blog frequently and I just thought I’d say keep up the amazing work!
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