Our house previously had a distinct living room with a separate kitchen/dining room area. There was a large ugly wall between the two, so if you were in the kitchen, you couldn't see into the living room and vice versa. We decided that we wanted to "update" our house and create a large "great" room out of these three areas. At the same time, we also wanted to tear down a small wall in our entry way that really served no purpose. Because we were tearing down walls, we'd need new flooring as well. Luckily, we have a lot of friends and family who are good at this stuff, so we only had to hire people for 2 services - installing carpet and mudding/texturing the ceiling and walls where we put in new drywall.
Here's what we did (when I say "we", I mostly mean Luke and his friends because I was pregnant through all of this, so I couldn't do much of the heavy labor - thankfully!):
* Tore down 2 existing walls
* Re-routed cable and electrical from those walls
* Tore out old, ugly, light beige, cheap carpet from living room
* Pulled off all old trim and molding, which was in pretty bad shape
* Painted all walls in living room and dining areas - I kept the black in the kitchen I'd done before
* Routed electrical for new living room ceiling light, as there wasn't one there before
* Installed tile in entry, kitchen and dining areas
* Had new carpet installed in living room (darker, more kid-friendly)
* Installed all new light fixtures
I think that's about it. Once we were basically done with that room, we moved onto the nursery. No major remodel in there, but a lot of work anyway. Luke was firmly against painting the whole room pink, so we agreed to do a white chair rail with pink on the upper part of the wall and green on the bottom. I wasn't too thrilled at first, since it looked like a big pastel easter egg. But after we hung stuff on the walls and got furniture in there, it grew on me.
Here are a couple "Before" photos where you can see the old house....
This is the old linoleum in the kitchen/dining room, along with the wall we tore out. On the right, you can kind of see what our living room used to look like - I'm sure you remember that it was small and cramped.
And the After shots...
And here's the nursery (yes, we've picked a name. And we have to stick to it now that it's on the wall.)
