Having just come off of the high of wallpaper completion, Hubster and I are ready to begin a new renovation project.
The Living Room.
Oh, HUSH. Sometimes quality work takes TIME, people. LOTS of TIME.
Now, where was I?
Our living room has paneling that dates back to the 70's. We'd like to replace it with sheet rock and paint, adding additional lighting to the room we affectionately call "The Cave" since it's so dark.
There's a 6' long crack in the vaulted, beamed ceiling, and a foot-and-a-half circular place where something leaked once before we ever moved in and was never fixed. The ceiling needs painting as well.
Underneath the carpeting, which I've never liked, are the original hardwood floors - just waiting to be refinished and brought back to life. We could also use some sort of entertainment center/bookshelf thingy that goes all the way up to the ceiling on the wall that houses the stairs to the garage.
Amazingly, the cost for materials for this little endeavor is much less than we thought. It's the cost of the labor that's killing us. For just the paneling, ceiling and sheet rock (no painting) part, we have one bid of almost $4000.00.
We aren't spring chickens anymore. Hubster's back goes out if you so much as look at it cross-eyed. And we all know the saga of my knees.
Plus, there's the fact that it's a lot of hard work and neither one of us really want to tackle it. Add to that the procrastination factor (refer to wallpapering, hallway), and it could be sometime in late 2040 before it actually gets done...by the new owners.
Because let's face it, we'll both be dead and gone by then.
And I think we can safely say there's no way we are going to pay that much to get it done.
So tonight we're getting another bid. Then Hubster is going to talk to his brother who knows a guy that does sheet rock mudding for a living. Hopefully this guy will know someone who wants to do a little sheet rock work on the side. We can take down the paneling ourselves, hire the mudding guy to patch the cracks and repair the damaged spot and the sheet rock guy to do his thing, then get a semi-pro in to do the floors.
I'm hoping to spend less than half of the first bid to get this done. We'll see how it pans out.
Oh HUSH. A girl can dream, can't she?
And if a girl can dream, an old lady can too.
2 comments:
Old ladies are extremely good at dreaming. I say have a demolition party and get the boys round to remove all and feed them as payment. Then get all able-bodied members of the family aged under 40 to "volunteer" to do the floors and painting. There may be some who are capable of doing the sheetrocking too.
You, my dear get to go and choose the fancy bits. And the supervising. The $3950 you save goes immediately7 inot the "Old Lady's Dream Fund". I am a genius.
SEAN???? Your mother needs you!!
I dream of refinished floors too. Hubby just finished redoing the hardwood in our spare bedroom and after a lot of work in which the bedroom was packed into my hallway it is done. And it's lovely. But now I want all the floors done. Sigh.
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