We recently completed the renovation of  our living and dining room. I’ve got in-progress photos to post but I wanted to share these (it’s clean! It’s decorated for the holidays!) before it all goes to hell. And the crazy makeshift light fixture above the sofa is just a temporary fix.  Just a rundown of what we did and some before-and-afters below since we bought the house:

• Stripped and refinished the floors.
• Dale skim-coated and sanded all the walls in the living room, dining room and hallway in order to make the walls smooth and like new!
• We put up all-new trim, including door and window trim, throughout the area (minus the entryway, though we did paint it and put up caulk around the windows).
• Painted the window trim, put up thin curtains (the room had heavy curtains that were attached to the ceiling).
• Cleaned the windows, including the storm windows (which were a retrofit and you can only take them off from the outside–ugh).

The view from the entry way:

And the view now (no wallpaper, no carpet):

Here’s the entryway and hallway when we moved in:

And here it is now:

And a view from the windows into the dining room (before):

No carpet, no wallpaper, new paint, new trim, and we painted the brass chandelier white!

And another view for the stalker out there:

Pretty exciting! We’re going to have art work up in 2014. Maybe.