The Way it Was

 There has to be a better way to arrange photos than the way I'm doing it!

Anywho - lets go back to the beginning to see what has transpired over the past few years and how we ended up with a house in total chaos for the last month. 

When we bought this house, this 'entertainment center' was built into this spot. 

It measured 90 some-odd inches x 90 some-odd inches. If it wasn't totally square, it was close. It 24 inches deep and built to hold one of those huge tvs from the late 90's early 2000's. The shelf in the middle was added later to hold a more up-to-date tv. To me it was a big, dark hole. It needed to either be painted or come out. 

Since there wasn't room for a larger tv with the built-in in place, it came out! There are pictures of the process of getting it out but I lost them in the process of arranging them in this post and didn't go back and upload them again. Suffice to say it was quite a feat. It had to come out in four parts and all the screws were hidden. I think hubby ended up with just about every tool he owns in the house by the time it was out. This is what we were left with at that point.

Then kidlet #2, Pa and Tyler finished getting the paneling off the wall and figured out what would be need to be done before the next step.

He got his bigger tv

Then it was time to add shiplap to the wall. 

Notice the floor under where the built-in was. 

The rest of the living room is stained concrete and this was apparently put in place before they stained the floors because it was bare!

Got the shiplap done. 

Kidlet returned to help hang the tv

And we have a rug covering the bare concrete floor. 

This is how we ended 2021.

And this how we ended 2022.

Well over a year later, we still had a runner covering the bare floor.

It's going to get better - but first it's going to get really messy!