Living room details

The living room is a little bit more interesting in terms of details and interesting problems we had to fix. We only kept four of the original details of the house and two of them are in the living room. (The other two are the tongue-and-groove eaves and the built-ins in the dining room.)

This is a picture of the original lead windows we kept. When we bought the house, they were not very secure (they used to blow open) or clean (at some point someone painted without covering them). We spent a day at the window shop with razor blades cleaning them up. Then we had them set in between two new panes of glass in a new frame. I think they turned out pretty well.

And they cast happy little rainbows all over the living room on sunny mornings.

This is a picture of the original tile we kept in front of the fireplace. Justin spent a few hours restoring it to a decent condition. The soot build up was so bad that he started with a sander and a wire brush. It's not perfect, but it really adds some character.

This is a picture of the "new" stairs. When we started, the top half was plywood covered in carpet, the bottom half was beat up hardwood, and the hand railing just didn't suit the house. We replaced the upper treads, refinished the bottom treads, painted the risers white, and Justin personally installed the new hand railing.

Now for the interesting things we encountered along the way. This is a picture of the front window and part of the entry. The window wasn't exactly air or water tight as you can see from the fogged up view. The lovely doorbell didn't work and the light beneath it wasn't actually wired into anything. I won't even pretend to understand its purpose.

I've been looking forward to posting this picture for a long time. It's of the floor under the front window and in the entry. Soak it in for a second and then let's count the things wrong with this picture.

1. On the right, you can see how beat up the original floor was. We looked into refinishing it instead of replacing it, but it was less than a quarter inch thick and there wouldn't have been anything left after sanding it.

2. At the top, you can see the tiled entry. See how it's raised? Instead of tiling correctly, they tiled directly on top of the hardwood/plywood combo beneath it. It was too tall for the door to open without scraping. And it was ugly.

3. And now the best part. Part of the floor is plywood. Patched plywood. It turns out that part of the house used to be part of the porch. At some point in time they enclosed it to be part of the living room, nailed down a piece of plywood for the floor, and threw a giant ugly carpet on top. Thanks for all the effort, guys.

4. Speaking of the patched plywood, that patch became the hole I fell through a few months ago.