The couch controversy and the credenza conundrum

I’m sure you’ve had many sleepless nights since I posted about our goal of moving our couch into our living room. Well I’m pleased to share that two weeks later, we finished every single task for the living room and finally moved our furniture upstairs!!

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Those first few moments having our things back in our daily life felt so surreal—until I sat on our couch. This couch has been a point of contention between Jeremy and I ever since we met. Jeremy bought it back in his single days. It treated him well, but when I came into the picture I informed him that it was too soft, to slippery, and looks like a brown potato. So we agreed to buy a new couch once we moved into a more long-term home. I’ve been looking forward to replacing this couch for so long. I’m dreaming of soft, supple cognac brown leather, or maybe tufted velvet. I’ve been pinning a ton on my living room dream board, and I can’t wait to buy new pieces to make this room truly special.

So here we are, in our long-term home and we finally have some furniture in our living room and I’m realizing how hard it will be to fit my beloved mid-century credenza.

The Credenza — The credenza is actually two stacked pieces.

The credenza works if we only use the lower piece–but what about the upper half?

This piece of furniture is so special to me—it sat in my grandparents’ dining room for decades and they left it to me after they both passed away. It is so gorgeous, has open shelving to showcase beautiful items, AND it has a ton of storage space. The problem is there’s no where to put it in our living room! We made the room open concept so there’s only one solid wall remaining. The other wall is full of windows so we can’t put the credenza there without blocking the windows, and the rest of the room is wide open so a 6-foot tall shelving unit wouldn’t make sense in the middle of the space. What are we to do?

One solution is to split the credenza into two pieces and place the TV on top of one piece but where would the other piece go? We are considering putting the buffet-style bottom piece behind the couch (similar to a console table) but then I’m worried the room will look too crowded and the couch would be pushed too close to the TV.

Solution #2 would mount the TV on the wall between the two windows, with the credenza up against on the solid wall. This idea would totally work, but we are worried about watching TV with daylight streaming in from behind the TV—we’d need to close the curtains whenever we watch TV and that seems annoying plus would cut the room off from natural light.

The third option is to keep the two pieces stacked and place our TV on the credenza, effectively blocking a lot of the upper shelves and cabinet doors. This way we could keep it together as it was originally designed, push it up against the solid wall, AND avoid the sunlight problem in option #2. But how silly is it to block the top half of this phenomenal piece of furniture with a huge dumb TV?

What do you think we should do? I’m determined to find a solution so this piece will continue to bring me joy for years to come—and I welcome any suggestions.

Also, if you know of a sofa that is very firm with solid back support that’s less than 90” wide—I want to hear about it!

The next time you see this living room, it will look drastically less brown and boring!

Living room is coming together!

Living room almost ready for living! Just need to install baseboards, window trim crown, & finish the entryway white wall

Our living room is SOOOOO close to being finished, which means we are DAYS away from putting furniture in the room and having a place to sit down!! I feel like a kid the night before Christmas…I’m so excited that I can almost feel those soft sofa cushions under my butt. You see, we have not had anywhere to sit since we purchased the house except for two hard kitchen chairs the previous owner left behind. When we moved in last month, we added three plastic folding chairs to sit at our island, but we still didn’t have anywhere to lounge or relax at the end of the day. We’ve been waiting to bring our living or dining room furniture into the house on a few outstanding, dust-producing tasks to get done.

But it’s a three-day weekend which means WE ARE GOING TO DO ALL THE THINGS!! Now that the plumber has replaced an old pipe we discovered in the front entryway wall and ceiling, we are going to close it up and paint it! Then we will install baseboard trim and re-finish the trim around our entryway door and two front windows.

Jeremy and I are already experts at installing baseboard trim because last weekend we installed a ton of it in our living and dining rooms. We only have a few pieces left to install after we finish the previously mentioned front wall.

How to Install Baseboard Trim

Difficulty level: Easy

Compared to some of the other tasks we’ve done, installing baseboard trim is pretty easy. We had to buy two power tools to get it done, but we think they’ll come in very handy when we tackle the basement renovation later this year.

Step 1: Measure wall

We bought extra long baseboards to ensure a single piece could reach from one side of the room to the other. We didn’t want any seams showing in the baseboard. I keep yelling “million dollar house!” and these details are how we’re gonna get there (I’m partially kidding). We measured each length of wall that would need a piece of baseboard and accounted for the 45-degree angle cut the saw would make. The goal was to make perfect, 90-degree corners at each inside or outside corner.

Step 2: Measure and cut the baseboard

We bought a 10-inch miter saw to cut wood at a 45-degree angle. Unfortunately the blade was not big enough to cut through our 7.5-inch tall baseboards…which we learned the hard way. The saw only cut through about 6 inches of the board and then we manually cut the rest with a tiny baby saw called a coping saw. I wouldn’t recommend this process but we didn’t have any alternative.

This step was confusing because we had measured the wall but didn’t know HOW to account for the 45-degree cut at the end. After a bunch of trial and error, we figured out where to cut the boards to create nice looking corners. Not all of our corners are perfect, but hopefully our friends and family won’t be crawling around looking for slight gaps at each corner. Plus, step # 4 mostly made up for this problem

Step 3: Nail the suckers in

We bought an AWESOME new, light-weight nail gun for this project, instead of renting an old, big, heavy one from the hardware store. It is so much easier to use and got the job done so fast. We nailed the baseboards into studs located behind the wall. We were lucky there were studs integrated into the plaster/brick walls, otherwise we’d have to use liquid nails which is a fancy word for super sticky glue, which is a lot more stressful to work with. We used our feet to push the baseboard close to the wall, then nailed those suckers in!

Step 4: Caulk the seams and edges

To hide any gaps, Jeremy used his trusty caulk gun to caulk the seams and edges along the top and corners of the baseboards. At each corner, he applied caulk BEFORE nailing it in place, to achieve a fully sealed-looking corner. For those corners that did not achieve a perfect 90-degree angle, I applied wood filler in the gaps to manually create the look of a sharp corner.

Step 5: Put wood filler in nail holes and any dings, then sand

To make the baseboards look flawless, I crawled around filling all the nail holes and dings with wood filler. Baseboards are not made from solid wood–they’re super light weight so they’re easy to handle but they ding at the slightest touch! The wood filler dries very quickly, then I sanded it flat to create a smooth surface

Wood filler in the nail holes, before I sanded it flat

Step 6: Paint, then paint again!

We applied two coats of super white paint in semi-gloss. and BAM, we suddenly have a livable space.

We’ve been sanding the trim around our two windows, and Jeremy is cobbling together a new set of window trim for a window in the back of the house from scraps we saved during demo. I’ll post more on that once it’s done. For now, keep your fingers crossed for a productive weekend that will end in me sitting on a couch!

The tricky task of leveling our floor

The main level of our house has changed a lot since we purchased the home. We removed several interior walls, including a brick wall in the rear of the house. We also removed several radiators, which left behind holes in the floor that you can peer through to see directly into the basement. On top of that, the “bonus room” addition out back was half an inch lower than the rest of the house.

Note the holes in the floor. The current floor flowed in all different directions, was different levels, and was uneven or missing in some places.

All of these issues were not conducive to installing brand new hardwood floors. So Jeremy and I did what we do best and set about making the floor level and even ourselves. We purchased 35 sheets of half-inch plywood and laid them across the entire first floor of our house.

Before screwing them in place, Jeremy had the bright idea to shore up the floor in the bonus room addition by adding a layer of thick plastic (to reduce heat loss through the floor) and a layer of metal mesh (to block mice and other critters from sneaking through the space where the floor meets the walls).

These were covered by two layers of plywood to bring it up to the same height as the rest of the house. Jeremy cut the plywood sheets with a circular saw to fit it around walls, columns, and other annoying barriers throughout the house.

Measuring where to cut the sheet of plywood.

Then we got to work screwing each piece of plywood in with approximately 24 screws. The goal was to screw them into each joist but after a while I gave up and just screwed them into the floor. They are definitely secure and not going anywhere–plus they’ll soon be covered in our new floor.

For anyone thinking of doing this yourself, know that while it’s not technically difficult, it is physically grueling. My knees and back were killing me after the first day, and it took two days to complete. Knee pads are a must!

My face looks unhappy because I was miserable at this point from so much kneeling on my knees.

The house is now ready to have our floors installed tomorrow! EEP! We spent the whole weekend painting the ceiling and walls in an attempt to get the majority of the painting out of the way before the floors go in. Unfortunately we wont finish painting 100% of the main level of the house in time, but we got a huge chunk done.

Open concept dreams coming true

When Jeremy and I first walked into this house, there was a LOT to take in–mostly the previous owner’s piles of possessions and garbage everywhere, with tons of walls cutting off the space into small rooms. But we also noticed the *potential* in this old, run-down house. So how do we get from this:

to this?

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The answer is that we have to knock the walls down.

This week, a construction company removed the load-bearing walls on the first floor of our home. Now we have the fun task ahead of us of making it look like a million bucks. Our rough plan for the next two months is:

Figure out how to either restore or replace floors (it looks like we will sadly have to replace them because they are in really bad shape)
Rewire all electric that is currently dangling out of our ceiling
Install recessed lighting
Replace some old windows
Close in the beams and columns
Replace entire kitchen–many decisions and choices to make!
Paint

We have a lot of work ahead of us and tons of decisions to make on materials, styles, who to hire, etc. etc. but we are feeling good about the progress we’ve made. I can’t wait to see how it looks at the beginning of next year!

Refreshed from vacation and hyper-productive

It’s been one week since we returned from our fabulous vacation and SO much has happened in the house.

For the first time in a long time, I feel calm and in control of the next few weeks. We know exactly what we need to accomplish between now and December first. The list is long and highly aspirational but at least it lays out our plan.

Meanwhile, last week the DC government came to the house and inspected all the work we’ve done so far and gave us the green light to keep going with our MASTER PLAN! Next week a company is going to remove the load bearing wall that goes the length of our main level. We were told we could save $3-4K if we did all the demo work ourselves—by demo I mean removing all the plaster/lath/drywall on top of the studs in the wall. So dammit, remove it we did! Of course we had tons of incredible and much-needed help from friends (thanks to Julian and Matt for channeling your brute strength to smash through all the walls) and stripped all the walls bare in just two days! Unfortunately, demo produces a LOT of garbage. In just two days, we filled 3 Bagster dumpsters (with a combined capacity of 9,000 pounds)!

We demolished the walls on the first floor, to be removed professionally next week

Julian went to town on that wall!

Matt literally smashed this wall to bits in only 2 hours!

Three huge garbage bags hanging out on our parking pad

Our house came with a fake fireplace. We knew it was fake and assumed it was just a thin brick façade. Turns out it was actually a full-sized fireplace made out of genuine (heavy) brick—except it was not connected to the adjacent chimney and therefore completely inoperable. Jeremy destroyed it with a small jack hammer while Matt and I helped him carry them out of the house. Cute enough, a previous owner had installed a fake log with a built-in light bulb (for warmth?). All of this work has helped to expose several square feet of living space that had previously been occupied by a useless pile of bricks.

Jeremy used a handheld jackhammer to destroy the fireplace

Tons of old bricks…what should we do with them?

Cute lil DIY log from the fireplace

On Sunday, our friend Lauren came over and helped us think out plans for our kitchen remodel. Always invite your architect friends over on the days you are finalizing plans for a kitchen remodel. She also helped us yank all the nails out of the window and door trim that we want to re-use. After marking on the floor where we envision the new island, we took a field trip the greatest place in the world.

It took us a few minutes to figure out this tool, but eventually we got it to work for us

We are pulling the nails through the back side of the wood so we can re-use the original trim around windows and doors

IKEA!

We are designing our kitchen using the frames of Ikea’s kitchen cabinets but covering them with the beautiful doors from SemiHandmadeDoors. Their doors are heavier, thicker, and more customizable than the options at Ikea, but still in the mid-level price range. And lucky for us, Ikea is having their annual kitchen sale in two weeks!

I love Ikea. It’s like a playground for adults—with meatballs!!