Since we don’t expect our new bathroom vanity to arrive for a couple more weeks (thanks, COVID!), our contractor has moved the construction from the master bathroom to the living room.

I completely forgot to take real “before” pictures way back when, so here are the best ones I have:

When we bought the house, all of the living room walls were dark wood paneling. The best we could do at the time was paint the paneling. We liked the two-tone look which was a quick fix, but we knew one day we’d remove the paneling altogether. Well, now it’s time! Say goodbye to the 1970s wood paneling and that annoying half wall by the kitchen!

It was a pleasant surprise when we didn’t find drywall under the bulkhead near the kitchen. So we decided to get rid of the bulkhead. That really opened the space even more!

An unpleasant surprise was discovering some mold on the drywall behind the paneling over and around the fireplace. The mold was dry and appeared to be old. The fireplace was repaired just before we bought the house, so most likely there was a leak in the past. There wasn’t any fresh mold behind the drywall, so our contractor just removed the drywall. The studs and insulation underneath were dry and in good shape! So we’ll just have more new drywall than we planned.

This week it’s the electrician’s turn to destroy our house! He’ll be doing several projects in the living room and master suite. He’ll also be adding can lights to Avery’s bedroom and updating the kids’ bathroom can lights to match the rest in the house. More updates will be coming!

Construction begins in the living room