Last Update: September 26, 2015.
It’s up for debate whether this is a living room, family room, drawing room, or sitting room. When you only have 700 square feet, I guess you call it what you want. We don’t actually have a name for ours–I guess it’s ‘the big room.’ Anyway–here’s what it looked like on day 1. The wall looks like it has the pox, and an overall unevenness. We don’t really mind the hardwood floor being messed up like this–generally, it has issues from where it’s been most walked on, potentially by shoes and the dog, and also on the other side from water damage from outside rain.
The main difficulty in this room are the stucco walls and ceiling. This means, most of all, dust and cobwebs everywhere. We began by spending half an hour using a damp mop to dust the ceiling. This didn’t work very well–so we spent another 1.5 hours vacuuming the ceiling. This ALMOST did the trick. Secondly, the stucco makes it difficult to paint–there’s much more surface area, and without a sufficiently long nap you can’t get into all the spaces. Ultimately, we used a stucco/concrete roller, with a nap designed for the purpose.
This before/after of the sconces provides a great example of the level of dust we’re dealing with. Fire hazard?
Here’s the top of the front door–what are these? Looks like leftovers from old spider egg pouches. Pretty nasty.
We removed all the window dressings, painted the walls Sherwin Williams ‘Requisite Gray’ and while we intended the trim to be ‘Eider White’–we mixed up the paints and ended up painting the trim just plain white. But, the truth is that we’re thrilled with how it looks.
Between the kitchen and living room, the transition didn’t go all the way across. 
I’m never sure how to read this bottom part of the measuring tape, but it sure looks like half an inch of kitchen flooring layers here. We cut it too long, and I spent a good half hour getting intimate with a piece of sandpaper, but finally, it fits perfectly.
Finally, we bought a new rug, and here’s what we end up with:
We’ve decided to leave the center entirely open, which gives us more space to play with Spooky. Also, we have no plans to add window dressings for the time being–if any, then sheer–because we like having so much light.
