Diary of a Home Remodel #1: The Family Room

Since I bought my house with the intentions of remodeling it over time, I thought I'd share my experiences, both positive and negative of living through a remodel. Like many of you, expense is a big hindrance to home remodeling. We chose to do our family room, living room and dining room first because it was a less expensive start than to do the kitchen at the same time. In this post, I'll focus on the family room. In future posts, I'll document those projects I've finished and those I'm working on for the near future.

Family Room Before

Family Room After

The Problem: Our home was built in 1987, a typical stucco and stone structure, that had been finished in a contemporary style, with gray berber carpets and mauve and gray wallpaper, formica kitchen cabinets, and yellow oak flooring. A previous owner had tried to update with beige carpet and lemon yellow paint, on the walls and ceilings. I bought the house knowing I would remodel. I liked the floor plan and the kitchen had great space to work with for a future remodel, but I wanted to add more traditional country touches that I felt better accented the divided light windows, bay and dormer windows. The fireplace was a solid wall of rock, with no room for storage or for a home entertainment system. Plus, the look was dated.



My Wish List: I love the charm and homey feel of older homes. I wanted to give my family room the same cozy feeling by adding built-ins next to the fireplace and hardwood floors.



My Solutions: The first thing we did, before moving in was to paint. Paint makes a big difference in the look and feel of a room. I love color, so I knew I wanted to add color, but since I'd bought my house over the internet and only seen it twice (we were still living in Michigan), I wasn't even sure where walls stopped and started. Thankfully, I hired a good painter, who recommended painting all of my ceilings and trim pure white to accent the colors. For the family room, I chose Midas Gold by ACE Hardware paint, and Stone Hearth by Benjamin Moore.



I knew that I wanted walnut hardwood floors throughout the first floor of my home. We would have to rip the kitchen out to redo the yellow oak floors, which I could not afford when we started this project. Plus, I didn't want to do the floors, and then destroy them when we tore out the rock fireplace. That necessitated doing the fireplace project first, and then replacing the carpet with hardwood flooring. I chose knotty cherry with a natural finish and a black glaze for the cabinetry and mantel. My one mistake, since the cabinets where custom, was not accurately measuring my cable box. If I could do it again, I would make the bottom cabinets 3 or 4 inches deeper. I chose a faux stone for its price and ease of use. I had outlets put in both cabinets and on the mantel for home entertainment equipment and Christmas decorating. I also had the cabinet makers use a grooved back panel for the bookshelves to add texture and mimic the look of beadboard. I chose a firebox with a light switch, so that I could turn the fireplace on and off easily.

Yellow Oak Cabinetry Before

We removed a yellow oak wet bar and wine rack (I called it the water balloon sink) because we don't drink and it was never used. I figured it would be a great spot for a desk.

This picture looks to the kitchen from the fireplace. I made an office corner where the wet bar once stood. You can also see the division between the new walnut and old yellow oak flooring in the kitchen. It may have looked funny for awhile, but it made the most economic sense. Be sure to find contractors who will work with you and your budget constraints.



Since these photos, I have added other details in another remodeling project which I'll post at a later date. The total time for this project was about 3 weeks. The biggest hassle was moving all of our furniture to the garage and dealing with the dust from dry walling and sanding floors. My favorite things are the "flip of a switch" fire and all of the storage provided by the cabinets. Plus I have a mantel to hang my stockings by, that makes it all worth it!