Laundry room update and other projects

So you've seen the "before" shots of my laundry room. At this point, the construction guys have finished their work (they've actually been finished for over a month now) and I only have a few things left to take care of. So far, I've taped and mudded all the drywall seams (walls and ceiling), primed the walls (especially needed to cover the lovely orange and electric blue that was in there before), and painted the ceiling. While the insurance covered the cost of painting the walls, I still need to paint the trim and doors, as well as some touch-up spots on the walls. I am also planning to install channel covers to hide the electrical wires in the room. Here are some pictures of the work in progress...the second one shows the room in its mostly-complete state.


After all was said and done, my out-of-pocket expenses for the repairs came in around $2500, not a small amount, but better than it could have been. Plus I have a great-looking laundry room now:)

All of the construction work in my laundry room has motivated me to work on some other projects in the house, too. My parents were able to come up in September to help me work on replacing my old wood-burning stove (that I couldn't use because it didn't conform to safety codes) with an electric fireplace insert. I had originally planned to install a vent-free, liquid-propane powered one, until I found that it also wasn't up to code in my town.

After removing the old stove and its flue, my dad was able to patch up the hole in the ceiling/roof. He also built a platform to hold the new fireplace. My mom and I got to lay the tile. Again there was mudding and taping to be done...I'm getting pretty good at this by now. I still have the painting to take care of, but here are some picture to give you an idea of what things will look like.



The third on-going project at my house right now is my living room. That's right, my living room--where last Thanksgiving my parents and I were putting down the new floor. Ten months later, I've finally painted the walls (a nice light shade of yellow that my friend, Jenn, also has in her living room). I've also installed a new door bell and vertical blinds, but still need to stain, varnish and install the baseboards. Unfortunately, that task is dependent on the completion of the laundry room. Once that's done, I can move the cats' litter boxes back there and I can use my back room for the staining and varnishing.

It's been a lot of work...and there's still more to do...but the end results are very satisfying. I'll be glad to show some of it off this Thanksgiving when some Tessa, Mo and the kids come for a visit.