Drywall addiction

Many of you have now seen that the kitchen is about 95% done (read more here).   However having an amazing all-new kitchen like this:

Puts some rather harsh perspective on the rest of the house:

Ah, yes.  The living room.  Not too much has changed since we bought the house 8 months ago when it looked like this:

Except that we started to try to update on our own and found under the 80s wallpaper that we also had some 60s wallpaper:

And under that?  Very crumbly old walls.  Every time we tried to remove some of the older wallpaper parts of the wall would crumble.  Plus, we got a slightly positive test for lead paint.  Not surprisingly, we got discouraged and put the living room updating on hold while the kitchen work started.  However, as our move-in date approached rapidly we decided to bring in some contractors to get some quotes and some options for dealing with the space.  We landed on the same treatment we gave our spare bedroom upon finding lead paint: 1/4″ drywall.  Yep, rather than try to remove everything, we’re just covering it up with new drywall.  It is slightly more complicated that that, but that’s the gist. The good news is that it is relatively inexpensive compared to removing all the old plaster.

In addition, we’re giving Sydney’s room the same treatment as well.  The installation of the pocket door left us with this in her room:

So her room is also getting the drywall treatment.  Along with the walls in the living room and Sydney’s room, we’re having the contractor demo the acoustical tile ceiling which looks like this:

And having them install a new crown molding since the existing one was dinky and not really salvageable.  Whew!  Is that enough or what?  Interestingly, the estimate for the work was only a few days which seems crazy compared to how long the kitchen has taken!  But the good news is that the work should be done before we move in which is great since anyone who has lived through drywall work knows it is super dusty and no fun at all!

I’ll be sure to post pictures as soon as I can.  I’m so excited to see the transformation!

Cheers,

G