house of anaïs – living room before and after

Here comes another room in the House of Anaïs original house project – a 1930s country cottage that had been twice extended but not renovated for a while… Unfortunately like before, I have photos of the before, but the final after-state ones are still hidden in some dark space and therefore you need to use your imagination there what you would do with a space like this!

So here we go as a starting point – the living room when we bought the house (no, the furniture is not ours, although we inherited some of it when we moved there). As this room was an extension to the original cottage, the ceiling is lower than elsewhere in the house. What was great was that the windows were large and double-glazed at least so a lot of light (or frost) was coming in.

What was not so nice was the fake wood panelling on the walls, the worn rough blue carpet laid on concrete (read cold floor) and the lack of ceiling lighting. The old front door was turned into arch-shaped entryway from the dining room, and the old window was covered from the living room side.

The ceiling used to be rather horrid textured ceiling, so it was also removed and replastered and new lights added.

And this is how our project progressed. Step 1 – remove the fake panelling, insulate walls and redo them. The paint colour was the typical English countryside colour – Magnolia. Note the temporary carpet that I bought on week 2 (and cut and laid it down myself too as one could tell easily when inspecting the corners!)

There are also new curtain rods and the old window to dining room has been opened – we created shelving there will LED-lights in the structure (blue and white, it gave a nice mood in the evening)

Here’s a view from the other side (dining room) to the living room at the same time (dining room works started before the living room – in dining room some coving was also added as the old was fas some sort of flammable foam. As the grand piano was kept here, we installed blackout blinds here to prevent light damage).

As the heating was not working that well, a new system was put it and matching to the style Victorian 2-column radiators were chosen

Almost there in this picture… coving still being painted and some electric work is not finished. The best thing in this room certainly was the views of beautiful countryside – any decent decor will be greatly enhanced with these views!

Here’s the room after. This is the opened up view from living room to the dining room. All light switches, sockets and lights got the brushed chrome look – a much nicer than the dirty off-white plastic that was there before.

Here you can see the few oak floors. They were untreated and I used linseed oil to give them natural shine and protective coating. It gives a great look and is cheap, but you need to reapply the coat more often in the beginning to keep the floor good. We also added plain wood blinds in addition to curtains and the new skirting was that nice Victorian high Torus model.

The furniture here are still those cast-offs from previous owners that we kept there during the renovations (nice coffee breaks are important when you work in the house yourself, as are breaks to watch some home improvement programs etc…)

And the final “after” view before furnishing. We kept the old door and added some frosting to it, as it leads to office/guest room space off living room. The only thing that did not end up looking so pretty is the tv/antenna hookup – not a change for a cable connection in deep countryside.