A Man Gift for My Wife: Pt 2

Ok, so Saturday morning I worked in the dining room doing some painting and installing some chair rail. It is something that I knew Renae would like because she was loved the wainscotting and chair rail in our bathrooms, and the two tone wall split with chair rail that I did for my office upstairs. So, I thought why not spruce up the first floor a bit. I started with the dinning room, and then I moved into the living room.

Sunday was part two...Renae picked out a beige color that she thought complimented the walls and I got the chair rail and went to work. But as before, you need to see what a hideous mess this living room was when we first saw it. This is far worse than the dining room and required a butt load more TLC.

Here ya go, enjoy!

This again was the first time we stepped foot in the house. It was a dream of mine to have something that needed work, this was the third worst house that we saw...the other two were like whoah!

So...the renters here apparently decided to rip out a fireplace and put in a wood burning stove but didn't follow code...idiots!

I kinda wish we had a fire place, but it's all good. Renae loves the fact that they had a beige wall as their accent wall...and it was next to the ugly green hallway.

Hi mom!

Before we could go to settlement the fireplace needed to be removed, and the wall sealed or else it would not pass the inspection/appraisal process.

So....

On THE hottest day of the 2010 summer, my dad and I worked out butts off removing the entire chimney stack.

Then we studded the wall to get prepped for drywall.

Yeah, we finished at like 11:30 pm...I think we started at like 4:00. But it passed what it needed to for us to go to settlement.

First week in, and the carpet (which smelled like smoke and dog pee) was OUT!

Hello new flooring! How you make this room look so much better!

We went with a neutral beige color just to keep it simple.

Now all the furniture was out of the dinning room and into the living room.

Our first wall decorations.

Fast forward from September 2010 to December 2011.

Walls were taped and ready for some fresh paint!

At first I didn't see much of a difference, but as the paint dried it began to show more.

Starting to look nice!

BAM! Chair rail makes all the difference.

I feel like it isn't much work for the amount of difference that it makes in the room.

P.S. I moved the drapes so that they wouldn't get paint on them and Renae's response to it..."Oh, that looks nice! How come we never did that before!?!?"

So I know that these weren't huge gifts, but they were things that we have talked about before. I thought that since Renae would love it and it would be done by my Christmas break that she would appreciate it. Well...she did. Made me happy to do some work with my hands and it made her happy that our house is starting to feel more cozy.

ONE STEP AT A TIME :)