Ongoing Work
When Hurricane Irene hit New Jersey in late August of 2011, we thought we were safe. We live on high ground, nowhere near a river or stream. However, the ground had been so saturated with water from previous storms that we were not going to be immune from flooding. The one room we lost was the living room. Water came up through cracks in the foundation and we had a good 1/2" of water in there. Immediately after the storm, we did have a cleanup crew come in and remove all of the damaged materials but we did not have the time nor the resources to fix everything up.
Fast-forward to now. To be honest, I've been sick of not having a living room. We can't have people over to visit and I truly miss watching my hockey on our sole big-screen TV. Bear and I decided it was time to start working on it, especially since I'm off for half of the summer.
Now don't get me wrong here. Bear and I are NOT doing the work ourselves. We're too old and out of shape for that sort of stuff. I remember the fiasco that painting our bedroom was when we first moved in. I promised myself never again. Bear can do the little things around the house but when it comes to a major project like this we hired professionals.
Here are some shots of (sort of) the before--the workmen had already been in to patch up the walls. You can see in the second photo where we had water damage from a bad gutter.
Here are some shots showing the first phase over:
That's Stiggie making an appearance.
We went with a very, very light blue on three of the walls. The big wall with the fireplace on it will be a task for another day as it continues on into the dining room above and that means the entire dining room would have to be painted as well.
Today the flooring is being installed. It's a laminate of Brazilian Jatoba, which looks like a cherry wood. On Wednesday our new couches arrive as well. We were able to salvage the two end tables and coffee table which you can see in the photo above but the couches were toast.
I'm just hoping everything will look OK when it's done.
Fast-forward to now. To be honest, I've been sick of not having a living room. We can't have people over to visit and I truly miss watching my hockey on our sole big-screen TV. Bear and I decided it was time to start working on it, especially since I'm off for half of the summer.
Now don't get me wrong here. Bear and I are NOT doing the work ourselves. We're too old and out of shape for that sort of stuff. I remember the fiasco that painting our bedroom was when we first moved in. I promised myself never again. Bear can do the little things around the house but when it comes to a major project like this we hired professionals.
Here are some shots of (sort of) the before--the workmen had already been in to patch up the walls. You can see in the second photo where we had water damage from a bad gutter.
Here are some shots showing the first phase over:
That's Stiggie making an appearance.
Today the flooring is being installed. It's a laminate of Brazilian Jatoba, which looks like a cherry wood. On Wednesday our new couches arrive as well. We were able to salvage the two end tables and coffee table which you can see in the photo above but the couches were toast.
I'm just hoping everything will look OK when it's done.
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