When we moved into our house, we loved the location and the potential. Some things we were not quite as excited about. The inside of our house wasn’t much our style, so we’ve change some things here and there. This is one of those things:
Our dining room came into our possession with some high mileage yellow shag, yellow walls, highlighted by yellow wrought iron railing, that led into a yellow hallway that opened onto a bathroom that, in the name of variety, wasn’t completely yellow. The wallpaper isn’t attractive, but it has a really sweet personality if you get to know it.
If you, dear reader (readers in the plural if I count all 4 or 5 of you), think that this yellow-palooza sounds like a thing that might be exaggerated or even made up whole cloth, feast your eyes:
The lovely wife, overcome by yellow overload, painted the walls. That made the walls look much better. It also made the all-caps HORRIBLE looking carpet look more horrible.
The dining room was also extra long, almost awkwardly so. Our remodel plan called for partitioning off the end of the dining room that led to the kitchen and making a large butler’s pantry. First things first, there was some ancient carpet to be dealt with:
Full disclaimer: I’m slightly less excited to be ripping up ancient worn out carpet than this picture might convey.
Removing the past-its-prime carpet revealed a subfloor that was hardwood ready with only some minor cleanup.
With the carpet up, the partition wall to create the butler’s pantry could be built. The extra wide opening is for the pocket door.
Pocket door frame installed.
Sheetrock…
…and some paint, which means that it was time to start laying down the floor. We decided to try Bamboo…
Lay a board down, rinse and repeat.
…rinse and repeat…
…rinse and repeat until the floor is done. I bought an inexpensive but very effective floor nailer for the job. Definitely coming out ahead versus renting.
The view of the butler’s pantry with the pocket door installed.
Pocket door hardware installed.
The new, smaller dining room, with new rug.
And new lighting! This puts the project at about 95% complete. I’ll be satisfied if I get the last 5% done before winter.