When I shared the photos of our sitting room makeover on social media and Apartment Therapy I got some really interesting comments. Most of them weren’t very nice and caused a bit of a stir, as most people were so annoyed we removed the original features and this room has now lost its character. For the record, we love this room and I just wanted to share in a bit more detail what we did and why we did it.
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If you saw my post about the fireplaces I shared, you saw the reasons behind the makeover and what we did, but here is the whole story!
Before
The “Before” photo can be a bit misleading with the beautiful “wooden panels” and original features. The house was built in 1930s and this fireplace is not original, when we removed the tiles we discovered the heath and shape underneath it. The fireplace was also closed off and electric fireplace was placed in front of it. The tiles were loose and the heath was actually crumbling away.
The original features – are also not wood, the wall panels and the coving is actually asbestos. We had these tested before we bought the house and we knew they would have to be removed by a professionals, so the panelling HAD to go!
During
The render was crumbly so we decided to remove it all and start all over with fresh plaster and plasterboard.
As we already have a good sized living room, we decided to make this room smaller to create a downstairs toilet and extend the wall to make the hallway a bit wider too.
As the tiles came off, so did most of the render and bricks. We used a professional log burner installer, who removed the old fireplace, fixed the bricks and installed a lintel to ensure it was safe to use.
The sides of the fireplace were not very even, so we built a stud wall and plasterboarded. We tiled the inside of the fireplace using Ca Pietra tiles in herringbone pattern and used Brazilian Slate for the hearth.
We chose Desert Oak flooring from Floor Street in wide plant to match the other rooms in the house.
We painted the walls using Rustoleum paint Steamed Milk and all woodwork, including the mantelpiece and the shelves, we built ourselves using some leftover MDF boards (post to follow).
After
We added some antique furniture I restored and the small green velvet sofa is from Dunelm. The walls and woodwork is painted in Rustoleum Steamed Milk.
See Amazon UK and Amazon US for links to the items.
Light fixture – Vogue Elberton
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Hi Evija
People who make nasty comments are called Trolls. Don’t take any notice of them. They may have mental health problems and/or are angry with their lives. Just ignore them.
There’s only a few questions to ask yourself. Do I like the work I have done? Am I happy with my home and is it comfortable? If the answers are yes, then keep it like that. It’s your home. What other people think is not important. NEVER take down any of your work if the work is good and you like it.
When you get Troll comments just delete them.
Best wishes to you. May you have good health and happiness.
Thank you so much, that is so kind of you to say! 🙂