Our Living Room Renovation: Before & After
We've been in our house now since November 2021 and the living room was actually the first room we started to renovate. I say "renovate" as opposed to "decorate" because it really was a project. It wasn't just a question of taking off a few layers of wallpaper and slapping paint on afterwards.
We were dealing with a room that was very neglected, with years-upon-years of wallpaper and paint layered on top of each other. Even the ceiling was "wallpapered". When you're dealing with plaster that's at least fifty years old, you know it's not going to be a straightforward process. So let me take you wayyyy back to November 2021, when we first moved in.
November 2021: Move in day
It was ok as a living space to start off with. Back then we had one small sofa from our previous pad that we rented, a TV stand and a coffee table and that was about it. So it all looked very small in such a large space, because the lounge is pretty big. But the purple wallpaper you can see felt horrible and it was really badly put on. It was bulging in places because it had been layered on top of (no word of a lie) six layers of old wallpaper. If you've never stripped wallpaper before, you won't be able to understand exactly how much of a pain it is, especially if it's been painted on top of as well.
So yeah, the walls were ok, we knew it might be a bit of a horror story underneath but we went with it. The floor was, you could tell right off the bat, cheap and nasty. It looked alright but in terms of walking on it and utilising it, it was actually awful. The underlay wasn't good either, being a mixture of carpet underlay, plywood and some weird rubbery stuff with bugs running through it - gross.
The ceiling was wallpapered, which we both saw when we looked around the place. It was one of those things where you look at each other, knowing full well you're both thinking the same thing. We knew it wouldn't be good under there either, because why wallpaper it?
All of the plug sockets were made from cheap, really thin plastic and none of them actually had switches, which was strange. The vent that should be taking smoke etc from the log burner was blocked up with an old towel and hadn't been changed for years. There was a live gas pipe sticking out of the floor which was an eyesore (we had a Gas Safe Registered engineer out to deal with that and cap it off) and obviously had been there when there was a gas fire installed as opposed to a log burner.
There wasn't actually a door on the living room, despite there being spaces for hinges. The skirting board was also badly fitted and clearly original. Much of it had rotted and was nailed into the wall with the biggest nails you've ever seen. There was a wooden plinth nailed across the top of the window which housed a curtain rail, despite the fact that the house had vertical blinds in the front (which we got rid of immediately because they were disgusting as well).
The window sill was plastic, covering the original wooden window sill, which was actually in pretty good condition aside from some chips, old paint and glue from the plastic board! The radiators were super old, one-panelled and had no TRVs on them. One of the valves were broken so it was always on, which meant our gas bill during the winter was astonishing. It was all a bit of a mess. The only thing that was actually in good nick was the log burner.
Stripping the walls & ripping off the plastic window sill
The first thing we did when we moved in was take the fireplace surround off and strip the wallpaper off both the walls and the ceiling. We were horrified because as one layer would come off, another bit of wallpaper was underneath. There were six layers of wallpaper on there all in all. I can't tell you how happy I was when we finally came to the last layer and was met by original skimming and, would you believe, original paintwork.
The previous owners also wallpapered over a wall that had plaster hanging off it, hence why it bulged at the bottom. You'll see in the following photos that there's a huge bit of plaster missing on the corner near where the door is. Putting a new door on was actually THE first thing we did I believe to give us some privacy, because people walking in front of the house would be able to see right through into the kitchen.
We also ripped off, literally, the plastic window sill. Underneath was an original wooden window board that was dinged up in places and covered in glue from the plastic window sill that had been laid on top of it. We actually wanted to rip it out and put a new one in initially, but instead, we sanded it down several times until all of the old paint was off as well as the glue. It was pretty much down to the wood material in some areas.
Re-plastering & patching up
As soon as we knew what we were dealing with, we took the steps to re-plaster everything ourselves. Having a room this big plastered by a professional would have cost a lot of money. As first time buyers who have already parted with a lot of cash to get on the ladder in the first place, we just didn't have that surplus money, so we learnt the skills and, with help from family as well, we patched it all up ourselves.
For some things we used plaster, for others we used Polyfilla and for others we dobbed on some white paint (where the old paint flaked away). Once all of it had dried, we sanded it all smooth. But there was a hell of a lot to fill and sand back. Often, you'd sand bits back only to realise that it needed plastering again because it had sunk into the void. It was a very tedious process and it wasn't over at this point.
We knew we wanted to move the old radiators and entirely replace them with more modern ones and there was still wallpaper behind those old radiators. So when we took those off and stripped the wallpaper again (all six layers...), we were in for a shock! More on that in a mo.
Painting it white
Once it was all filled and sanded back and it was at a point where we thought we could at least get some white paint on ready for Christmas, we got on with giving it a few layers of Dulux Brilliant White paint. It didn't have any skirting boards or anything on at this point either, so it really was a building site, but we wanted it someway decent for Christmas time and to put up our Christmas tree. Painting it white was actually the easiest bit, so there's not too much to say about that right now!
Moving the radiators
Christmas came and went and we were on a timeline to get a new boiler in before April (when the first price hike occurred). The old we was at least 25 years old and it was so inefficient. I've already talked about the broken radiator valve - that was something else that was costing us a lot of money because it was always on full heat, so it needed replacing in time for the new boiler.
But the time eventually came to rip the old ones out in preparation for moving the pipes to a different wall. We knew there'd be several layers of wallpaper behind them, but we weren't prepared for the giant cracks and awful state of the plaster. So we chopped some of the cracks out to make them a bit bigger. This seems counter-intuitive, but you need to make them bigger so you can fill them properly. This way, they're far less likely to come back, if at all.
So I filled them all with plaster, made them as flush as possible, waiting for them to dry and then sanded them all back by hand. I can't tell you the amount of times I've actually sanded the skin off my fingers because I've been sanding things that much. But looking at those walls now, you'd never know that there was actually anything there at all.
Changing the hearth
We actually hated the look of the old hearth. It was ok for a short time but we really just thought it would look odd against all of the modern decor we were planning, so Tom and his granddad actually took all of the old hearth out and laid new, heat-resistant tiles down that were more neutral in colour and that looked more modern and looked-after. These tiles are also easy to clean because having a log burner isn't mess-free if you're putting fresh wood on the fire or clearing ash out.
Taking the old floor up, fitting new skirting board, installing new architrave & hanging our new oak beam
The next step was to fit new skirting boards. We wanted to fit the floor up the skirting boards because it would make things far easier if we ever wanted to change the floor, for whatever reason. Also, the floor underneath is solid concrete so there's no room for movement. So we fitted the skirting boards and new architrave, which isn't actually as easy as it sounds. It's important all of the angles are right otherwise you could end up with gaps left, right and centre.
The old floor also needed to be ripped up because it felt awful to walk on. It was also laid on a mixture of different underlay which was also different thicknesses. Some areas it was laid on top of thick rubber, in other places it was on top of plywood and in other places it was on top of carpet underlay - makes no sense. It was a mess. In the rubber underlay, there were bugs actually inside it.
So we wrapped it all up, threw it outside and took it to the tip the first chance we got. I don't actually have any pictures of that mess because I think I was more preoccupied with getting that disgusting floor out of our house, haha. I do, however, have a couple of photos of the skirting board going on, together with a picture of our new oak beam, replacing the giant white one that was there before.
Also, when you fit a new skirting board and fit it securely, you have giant screw holes. These need to be filled with Polyfilla and then sanded back. Even that's not a quick or simple process. The architrave is pinned to the wall and these need to be hammered in and then calked before glossing. The skirting board, on top, needs to be calked as well to stop dirt and dust going down the back of it. It really is lengthy but it's so worth it for the results you get at the end.
Laying our new floor
Eventually, it was time to lay the new floor. We bought one from Quick Step. It's water-resistant and hard-wearing, so great for heavy foot traffic. It's also exceptionally thick so it's not going anywhere! We also bought the right underlay for it, so it now feels solid to walk on and definitely not soft and bouncy. Like I've said before, we laid the floor up to the skirting board rather than put it underneath, just so we can take the floor up more easily if we ever needed to get it out.
Calking around the skirting board, putting up coving & painting the ceiling
The skirting board needs to be calked at the bottom, between the wood and floor, for the same reason you'd calke the top of the skirting board. This also needed doing around the architrave. We also decided we wanted coving around the room because where the wall met the ceiling, it was very rough, almost beyond saving. So we salvaged it structurally and filled in the cracks, but we wanted it to look better than it did. The only way we could think of was to put up coving.
There's a debate as to whether it looks good or dated, but we quite like it. So we put the coving up ourselves, which wasn't straightforward or cheap. It also took a lot of planning and measuring to get it right so this took a lot of time. The end results, however, were astonishing and it was nearly time to paint both the coving and the ceiling. But before we could undercoat and gloss the wood, we needed to sort the ceiling and coving out.
The ceiling was just plasterboard that had been nailed together and then wallpapered over. So we sanded the ceiling down in the early stages, but it was now time for us to paint it white. It took about four coats of paint, but we eventually managed to give it full coverage and you wouldn't actually know now if you looked at it. We also painted the coving, but that took three layers of paint as opposed to four.
The finishing touches: painting the wood & putting some colour on the walls
It was finally time to get our paint brushes and rollers out. We undercoated the skirting board, the architrave and the window board we had sanded down. We then gave it three coats of white gloss in order to get a good, non-patchy finish. Glossing is something of an art and cannot be rushed unless you want brush marks or paint drips on your woodwork. It also takes forever to dry, so patience is key.
It took two coats of paint on three of the walls. For the lighter colour, we went for a Dulux paint in Jasmine White. For the feature wall, which also took two coats of paint, we went for Indigo Shade, also by Dulux. We also fitted the chrome sockets properly, squaring them up and giving them a polish.
August 2022: We're finally finished!
We're yet to get a new coffee table, but the minus that, the living room is now complete and I don't know what to do with myself, haha. We're just so happy to now be able to sit down on our sofa and chill out, knowing there's really nothing else to do in this room. I never thought this day would actually come when we started, yet here we are!
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I hope you enjoyed this blog post? Let me know in the comments whether you've completed a project of this scaled before, or worse? What did you do when you first moved into your house? I'd love to hear your stories and see some pictures! I'l see you again very soon with a brand new blog post :)
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