Putting Our Family Room Back Together

I'm happy to report that progress is being made on our family room!  We are slowly, but surely getting it back into a functioning space.  After sharing about our debacle in the last post, we left off with the new concrete floor curing.  While we were waiting for the concrete to cure before working on the flooring, Adam worked on rebuilding the steps up to the kitchen.  The original steps had to be completely removed before the new concrete could be poured.  Unfortunately, they had to be removed in pieces so they weren't able to just be put back as they were.  So Adam had to build new stairs from scratch.  He decided to build two boxes to act as the steps with some help from my dad.  (Thanks, Dad!)    

Once the boxes were in place, he worked on adding some hardwood flooring on top to cover up the unfinished boxes.  Luckily, we had some leftover flooring from when we had the hardwood flooring installed.  It's a good thing we hung onto it!  I'm not one to hang onto a bunch of extra stuff just in case we might need it in the future.  But in this case I'm glad we had it.  Adam also put the handrail back in place, along with the spindles on the stairs.  Once the stairs were back in place, he worked on putting back the laminate flooring in front of the steps.  

While Adam was busy with all that work, I took a weekend to paint.  And paint.  And paint.  Since we had drywall work done in the half bathroom and family room as part of the project, everything needed a new coat of paint.  There were a lot of sections of the wall that had been patched, so I decided to put a coat of primer over all the walls in the half bathroom and family room to prevent any drywall flashing.  Once the primer was dry, I put a fresh coat of paint on the family room walls.  Since it was such a light color, I got away with only needing one coat of paint.  The dark bathroom walls did end up needing two coats.  I also gave the wainscoting and wood trim in the bathroom two coats of fresh paint too.  I was certainly ready to stash away the paintbrushes and take a break from looking at any paint cans after all those coats.   

By this time, it had been over 30 days since we had the concrete poured.  That meant it was cured enough to cover the bathroom floor with tile and the family room floor with carpet.  One of the silver linings of this project was getting to pick out some new tile for the half bathroom.  I decided to go with small white hex tile.  It's a pretty classic tile that will stand the test of time, while also adding a fresh feel to the small bathroom.  I picked a medium tone gray grout, which helps the tile stand out a bit.  It will also help hide dust and dirt a bit better than white grout.  Since we had already put so much work into the space, we decided to hire this job out.  I love how it turned out!  And I love that we didn't have to do it even more.  

After the tile was installed, we had the original plumbing crew come back to install our new toilet and hook up the plumbing for the vanity.  It's been pretty exciting to have another functioning bathroom in our house again!  We didn't realize just how much we utilized that bathroom until it was out of commission for several months.  

The next step was to have the carpet relaid.  We were able to save the carpet that was previously in the family room and just have it put back in.  We did have to get a new carpet pad, but at least we were able to use the old carpet.  Luckily the carpet crew was able to make the old carpet fit nicely within the space.  Having carpet back in the family room really helped the room feel like it was part of our house again.   

With the carpet in place, we could then move back some of the furniture that we had been housing in other parts of our house.  We moved the aquarium stand (currently a work in progress) into the room from our dining room.  That will be the next big project Adam plans to finish.  It's already taking shape nicely and I'm sure our fish are eager to get to move back upstairs from the basement when it's finished.   

Prior to this big ol' project, we had a red couch and love seat in the family room.  We decided to move the love seat downstairs to make more room for the aquarium stand.  And I also decided we should switch the red couch for the tan couch we already had in our basement.  The red furniture never really jived with the rest of the house.  We talked my parents (Thanks Mom and Dad!) into helping us with the couch switcheroo since there were stairs and tricky doors involved.  After seeing the tan couch in the family room, I'm so happy we made the switch!  It just flows so much better with the overall vibe and color scheme of the rest of the house.  

While this room isn't quite finished yet, it's looking so much more put together now!  The walls and floors are back to normal.  Adam even managed to paint the ceiling and add a new ceiling fan.  Now we get to focus on the fun part of decorating the space.  Adam is going to focus on the aquarium stand next.  And I'm going to start mulling over what other furniture and decor we should add.  

This whole project has been such an expensive headache, but we're so happy to be on the other side of it.  And we're trying to focus on the silver linings.  Now we get to make this family room seem like a cohesive part of our home.  I'm looking forward to all the hours our family will get to clock in here together.