Tearing apart the lovely living room...

I love the size of the living room, it is amazing.  There was lots of dark paneling and carpet needed to be replaced. The previous owner had lots of animals and I didn't want our animals attempting to cover up their scent! The first weekend in the remodel we decided pulling out the carpet was a must.. And we had lots of eager helpers!

This is the original view from the front door.  

And underneath the carpet we discovered wood floors.

(Dedicated helpers Erin and Heather...)

For several weeks we wrestled over what to do with the floors. The large area that separated the two rooms and direction of the wood played a large part in the decision. We decided to go with laminate floors. I knew if we had to refinish the floors we might never get moved in. So off to Lowe's we went and back home we came, Swiftlock Handscraped Hickory  in the truck.

Handscraped Hickory

Bradly putting down the floors...

We hit the living room hard on Saturday and Sunday... putting up sheet rock, painting, cleaning.  I'm pretty sore this morning.

Frani enjoying the new floor and admiring the tape and bed job.

We had a tough time trying to figure out if we should change the molding color or leave it wood colored, because of the ceiling beams.  So we decided to split it.  We are going to try it out for a while and see how we feel about it.  The color we picked for the living room is Furry Otter Tail.  

The entryway. 

View from the sofa

I am not crazy about the entry spindles on the half wall, but until we decide what to do with them, I guess they'll stay.  But this picture shows the two tone molding better... we did everything below the ceiling white and left the ceiling wood.  (12/14/2012 Update:  The spindles have grown on me, like many things I thought I wouldn't originally like have done.  And I love the way the molding looks, I'm so glad we didn't touch it!)

...Update (01/02/2013)

We have finally completed the majority of the work in the living room.  I have added a few pillows and rugs with plenty of color since the room itself is so brown.  I love how it has turned out.

(To be continued..)