Taking Out A Wall

When we walked through our house I had a vision of what I wanted to do to the house. It included taking out a wall and opening up the entire living area/kitchen. That was the first project we tackled once we moved in. We even let the kids help us with demo.

This is the main living area before we purchased the home.

We consulted with an engineering firm beforehand to make sure the wall wasn't load bearing, and it wasn't. So off we went. 

We gave them hammers and let them have at it. 

You can see that there was also a wall in the kitchen that went around the stairwell. We were taking all of this out, and replacing it with an actual banister. 

We also pulled up the carpet in preparation to lay down a new floor, and found hardwood floors underneath. However they weren't in fabulous shape and there wasn't any hardwood in the kitchen. After calculating costs we decided it would be cheaper to lay Pergo down over everything then try to refinish the existing wood and lay down new wood in the kitchen. Not to mention the pain of refinishing the wood floor. 

It was a long process and we were living in a dust zone for about two weeks while everything was finished up. 

Notice the kitchen table tipped over to block our staircase while we didn't have a railing up. Yep, ghetto right? 

I was over the moon excited when we were able to get working on the banister. My kiddos always want to help their dad work and he is so patient to let them. 

We ended up patching the ceiling where the wall had been, patching the wall where the wall connected in, and we had already planned on laying new floor down so that patched right over the floor where the wall had been. Overall it was DEFINITELY worth it. 

It turned out FABULOUS. We put matching ceiling fans in to make the space more cohesive. We lightened everything up with a good ole coat of paint. The paint I used throughout the entire house (almost) was Alabaster White from Sherwin Williams, although I matched it at Home Depot and used Behr paint because it was more cost effective. 

The railing was painted in Repose Gray as well, with the same cabinet paint from the bottom kitchen cabinets. Win win! 

Our flooring was Pergo flooring from Home Depot. 

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Pergo-XP-Coffee-Handscraped-Hickory-10-mm-Thick-x-5-1-4-in-Wide-x-47-1-4-in-Length-Laminate-Flooring-13-74-sq-ft-case-LF000739/204735351

I really REALLY loved the look of this flooring, when I could keep it clean. With five kids it wasn't always clean, but hey, I tried.