The Living Room: Finally Finished

We finished the living room with barely 2 days to spare before my family arrived. Of course, finished is a relative term since there was still so much to do. The room was painted of course with the not-as-overwhelming-as-I-first-thought blue, but baseboard and crown molding needed to be purchased and hung yet, and the light fixture I had ordered 2-day shipping was, of course, delayed. Panic started to set in but I kept reminding myself to keep pushing through as I channeled my inner Dory from Finding Nemo singing ‘Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming’ as I worked.

We did manage to get the baseboard hung and caulked the day before. (It was quite the effort given that nothing in this house seems to be straight) but we made it. Sort of. It’d be nearly two weeks before we managed to get crown molding hung and caulked, and an additional three after that to get it all painted (due to minor health setbacks). At least it gave me time to paint the molding corner blocks we had bought to help dress up the room, and do touch up work on a few spots I had missed with the roller.

The light fixture arrived the day after everyone was there of course, but at least it arrived! I suppose it ended up coming right when it needed to since we now had extra hands to assemble and mount the fixture to the ceiling.

This is what the living room looked like when we bought the house 5 years ago.

(It had been used as a makeshift bedroom with one member of the household occupying the first floor and another occupying the second as separate ‘apartments’.)

I wish I had a photo to show you what it looked like after we moved in and before we started demolition on the ceiling but sadly there aren’t any good ones, so you’ll just have to use your imagination.

Our family room is finished though, minus some personal touches such as wall art and perhaps some family photos.

And for now, I’ll quietly ignore the toolbox sitting in the living room until we find it a better home. It’s only taken me three months to write about it all since the thought still exhausts me. I think we’re taking a break from any major projects for a while. Maybe for the next project, we’ll give ourselves a more reasonable deadline.