It’s Monday, 6th of June 2022 at the time of starting to write this post. Arriving home from work, I notice an update from dad that the Living Room has gained its carpet, the last room to do so. That means the renovation work is done in that room, and I realise that I haven’t started to write about this particular room yet and other parts of the house are nearly done too.
Best get on with it then!
Here we go. Some old photos of how it looked at the start.
Along with the rest of the house, we had a few skips round to clear everything, including the carpet. This revealed a Lino floor underneath.
That got taken up as well, and for a long time this room, due to its size, was being used as a workshop for the rest of the house. It was full of power tools, materials and other equipment and hence why it took a long time for the new carpet to go down and consider the room finished.
There are lots of things to cover before we get to that stage, though…
The old skirting boards couldn’t be saved, so they all got taken out as well. The room started to look pretty bare.
The house needed a rewire and, like everywhere else, electrical sockets were in short supply. This meant some replastering was also needed. The old fireplace came out too as it was just too dated to keep.
Initially we were going to keep and repaint the curtain rails, but they later got ditched for the same reason. As we progressed elsewhere with the house, it became clearer that some things just wouldn’t work with the new and updated style. This renovation is the first major work this house has had done to it in over 30 years.
We ripped out the old fireplace and blocked it up, replacing it with an electrical outlet that would later power an electric fire.
Constantly stepping over and around all the mess in here was getting tedious, but there came the point when we could begin to clear away some of the tools. The materials, including skirting boards and architraves, were beginning to get used. We began to see the end of it all.
We then painted most of the walls with the Valspar V700 paint matched to Farrow and Ball’s “Pavilion Grey” colour. As with other radiators, these ones were spray-painted black.
Then, on went the skirting boards and some contrasting magnolia paint for the chimney breast.
To explain why there’s a random fridge in here, it was where we were keeping our milk for tea and some snacks.
There were some less exciting things going on, like sanding the window sills and caulking round the French doors at the back, but these are still important things nonetheless. I thought my first time with an orbital sander went pretty well.
Now, onto that electric fire I mentioned earlier…
We went with a classic log burner type. It’s not recommended, even with safety standards, to stand these on carpets. We made a platform for it to sit on out of a marble slab.
Once that was in place and the carpet was laid, we had another room done and ready for staging (to come in a later post).
I hope you’re enjoying seeing the place come together so far and seeing it become a home again. Please feel free to follow along on my Instagram and Pinterest pages, linked to from this blog, if you are not already.
See you soon for the next room,
Lx
The Norfolk Home Diaries 