Before and After French Country Cottage Living Room Renovation

Scroll through the before and after photos of this French Country Cottage living room renovation!

Before and After French Country Cottage Living Room Renovation

Hi friends! If you are visiting here from What’s Up Wednesday with Sheaffer and Shay then welcome! If you have been following along with our adventures here at Hammers N Hugs, then you know the answer to #4. What We’ve Been Up To!

We have been hard at work over here for the last year on our third fixer upper – the French Country Cottage, but today is our big living room renovation reveal!!

Be sure to click HERE for more of our French Country Cottage and for the entire French Country Cottage Before Tour click here!

Before and After French Country Cottage Living Room Renovation

Before

As you can see the living room was a blank canvas.

Quite literally. BLANK. Nothing really to notice anywhere.

See that foyer entrance? Check out the before and after reveal of the foyer here!!

Before and After French Country Cottage Living Room Renovation

Demo

Ok, let the deconstruction begin! The first thing we did was open the living room into the kitchen.

Voila. Just like that. Wasn’t that easy? See the beam there? Keep an eye on that unsightly beam to learn an EASY way to finish a support beam.

Fun with Pop Pop (Zach’s dad) who does most of our painting!

Oh and there are the beams again! Separate post on this to come, but see how they are “framed out” with those 2×2’s all down horizontal and then vertical support beam?

We wrapped the beam with drywall and then placed drywall on the beam that ran horizontally as well.

Here’s the whole Hammers N Hugs crew! Taking a break from one of our many work days.

Lily was enjoying her toys on a piece of the old carpet we ripped up. Ha.

Ok here we are. That’s a horrible picture, but you get the point. You can see the drywall runs across the top of the beam now as well.

Before and After French Country Cottage Living Room Renovation

Flooring

The floor has been prepped and ready for the LVT!

For those of you local this flooring is from Ironstone Building Supply. How I wish I had known about them for our previous renovations! For the cottage I have gotten all of my building supplies from them – trim, drywall, flooring etc. We used “Modeled Oak” LVT by Shaw flooring here.

Maybe it’s because I have laid so much flooring in the past 6 years, but I really dislike laying floors. It is a very doable DIY even for a beginner, but that hunched-over position for hours on end is a killer!

Next time you see your favorite local floor guy thank him or her because this is a tiring job!

Real life. Right there. Anyone who has done home renovating knows that the above picture is an essential state of chaos for a period of time. Sometimes that period of time lasts longer than my mild degree of OCD can tolerate, and I have to take a break. I am much better about tolerating mess and chaos now than I used to be, but having 3 kids might have something to do with that . . .

Speaking of break time! Me and my girls!! Anyone think we look alike?

Before and After French Country Cottage Living Room Renovation

Support Beams

Back to those unsightly support beams. We wrapped the beams with drywall, primed them, and then added trim.

Adding the final coats of trim paint to the support beams!

Before and After French Country Cottage Living Room Renovation

Paint

Time to paint! I wanted a French blue/gray as the main color on the first floor, but this color was HARD to find. I didn’t want it to be too blue, but I also didn’t want gray. This color conundrum led me to hours of research on paint which inspired my post on the Most Popular Farmhouse Style Paint Guide which broke down 11 color boards of the most popular farmhouse style paint shades on the market today organized by cool and warm tones. Stay tuned for one paint post a month, sponsored by Bombergers Hardware Store here in Lititz, PA (with a special coupon monthly on paint for my readers!!) where I break down each of these color boards with dozens of pictures of paint inspiration!! If you are planning any paint projects in the year 2020, then you do NOT want to miss those posts!

Before and After French Country Living Room Renovation

The first color I chose was “Loft” by Magnolia. After the paint was one for a couple months I just was not happy with it. It was too blue. I will talk about this in my paint posts, but the bottom line – Magnolia has the best paint coverage I have ever seen. Their paint is so creamy and thick and covers beautifully. HOWEVER – DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT use their paint without buying a sample first. The descriptions of their paint colors online are not even close. It will say gray, but it is definitely more blue. White but ends up looking lavender. It is incredibly strange, but if you read reviews I am not alone on this one. They are just simply wrong. That being said, the paint itself is amazing. Benjamin Moore is still my favorite line overall, but Magnolia is starting to work itself up there.

Moving on though you can see the difference in these tones. The newer, lighter shade is “Passive” by Sherwin Williams but color matched in Magnolia. Again – amazing paint coverage, but you have to test it first! I loved it. It was exactly what I wanted. All that to say, I moved all the furniture, took everything off of the walls, and repainted in a day. Done. Happy Momma once again.

Before and After French Country Cottage Living Room Renovation

Fireplace

Time to assemble our reclaimed fireplace! For all the details click on the French Country Reclaimed Fireplace Renovation here!

Now it’s time to add the vertical ship lap to wall the corner in. Sweet helpers!

3 cuties in a box. The fireplace is getting there!

Installing the reclaimed brick surround.

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People often ask what we do with the kids when we are working on the houses we have renovated. The fact is, most of the time, they are with us. They learned very early on that a hammer is heavy and you don’t want to drop it on your foot. That power tools are off limits until you are taught how to use them and given permission. Every time we walk away from a tool it gets unplugged. We involve them in age appropriate ways. It can be totally exhausting to manage a project and your children all at the same time, but honestly, it can be incredibly rewarding as well to watch them learn and participate. More often than not, we work around them! Set up. Mess up. Clean up. Rinse and repeat. The point is if you want to get a project done, don’t wait forever because you can’t imagine doing it with your kids around. Get creative! Find ways to involve them in age appropriate ways.

Before and After French Country Cottage Living Room Renovation

Entertainment Unit

Time to construct our built-in entertainment unit! When I designed this room I was struggling to put our TV anywhere because I knocked all the walls out. Ha. And the fireplace was a must, so we decided to design a unit that would perfectly fit our tv and forego any needed bulky furniture or tv stand.

When all else fails there is always Dora the Explorer for this little construction crew.

Finishing touches include the overhead light/fan combo, and it’s time for the reveal!!

Before and After French Country Cottage Living Room Renovation

After

That rug can be found here.

Before and After French Country Cottage Living Room Renovation

Before and After

Thanks for joining us! What do you think?! Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below! Be sure to subscribe to Hammers N Hugs to join in more adventures!!