This was our first view of the living room.

One of the main features of the house was this beautiful fireplace with original gas heater…

and of course these big, beautiful windows!

Like the living room, vestibule, dining room, and playroom, this room involved “just” restoring the original surfaces.  I put that “just” in quotation marks because restoring the original surfaces was a LOT of work.  I guess before getting to restoration work we did do a few things.

We added sister joists to the ceiling because it was a long span and the floor above (Lucy’s bedroom) was a little bouncy…

and also added all new wiring for electrical outlets and lighting.

Then the restoration work began.  Up first was removing scraps of old wallpaper which had been painted over.

And then washing off all the glue to expose the original plaster.

Insulation was blown into the walls and, at some point (windows are all a blur now), I removed the windows and completely restored them.

After a TON of plaster repair, the walls were primed, and we sanded the floors.

And then refinished them.

And then we moved in!  This is basically what it looked like with our old drab furniture and unpainted walls, but we did eventually did get a couple new couches and painted the room.

Several months ago, after finishing the piano room, we finally moved on to finishing this room.  By now you already know the routine – We emptied the room, refinished all the woodwork, painted the ceiling, repainted the walls, and then took forever to select furniture that we liked.

But we are now ready for the big reveal.  Here is our completed living room!

The view from the piano room…

You might notice we don’t have any curtains.  This has been a big question for us.  We did originally have curtains in this room, but hated how it covered up the beautiful window trim.  Then we experimented with sheer curtains that were inset in each window, but we thought it looked a little old-fashioned compared to the style of furnishings we selected.  In the end, we decided to go with cellular blinds that can be raised from the bottom or lowered from the top.  They are barely noticeable (not installed yet when we took these pictures – so that’s why they aren’t noticeable at all).  We always have them lowered completely during the day to let in the sunlight and then raised about halfway at night for privacy.  But I still wonder if the lack of curtains is one reason the room still doesn’t seem quite finished to me yet.

[Edit from Amy: You guys, it’s finished.]

Like I said, we don’t feel like the room is 100% complete.  [Edit from Amy: Yes we do.] I’m still not sure about curtains and I also think we might be missing just a couple pieces of artwork on or above the bookshelves and/or over by the yellow chair.  But, it’s close enough for now.  We have learned not to rush design decisions.  It will all come together some day, but probably well after we officially proclaim our house “complete”.