New living room – Parempi kammari

Finally a renovation post! We have been finishing our living room and bed room. This post is about the renovation process of the living room. The interior is not completely ready yet. Some finishing touches like a carpet or curtains are still coming. However the living room is now in use. Some of the furniture that were originally in the room stayed there, like the shelf and the table. The overall view is still quite retro. We wanted it this way to reflect the time, when the house was build. On the photo above is an old photograph, which we wanted to have on the wall to respect the roots of farm. The couple is Susanna's great-grandparents and the photo was found from the farm. It has to be almost 100 years old. This was the starting point for the renovation. The biggest change was to remove the door between the bed room and the living room. The door was never in use. By removing it, we also have more wall space to use. One of the coolest things are the messages from the past, when you are renovating an older house. As we were removing the old floor baseboards we noticed, that Susanna's grandfather had written there: "Parempi kammari", which means a better room. This room was earlier used only for guests and on special occasions like birthdays or anniversaries. We continued making the same procedures to walls in the living room as we did in the dining room (see the post Let's make it bright). First with the help of Susanna's father we placed thin plasterboards on top of the old wallpapers. Then we painted the ceilings. Finally we placed the fibreglass wallpaper, which was this time way faster because we knew already what to do. Our cat Luigi was also giving a helping paw. When the wallpapers were fixed, we painted them white like in the dining room.
For the floor we chose a prefinished oak parquet floor. Main reason was the old plastic coated flooring, which we kept underneath the new floor. The removal of the old floor would have required a specialist and an isolation, because of the asbestos glue that they used to attach the old flooring. The prefinished parket floor was a safe, inexpensive and goodlooking choice. It also has a good durability in a long run. Placing the floor was quite fast and easy. Now screws or glue needed. For the ceilings we made the same crown molding as we have in the dining room. We used white painted pine, that had the same profile as the crown molding of the room originally. The retro look comes from the furniture, that date back to 60's and 70's. This sofa and armchairs are from a Finnish manufacturer Asko. We got them from our favorite retro shop in the town – Retro&Romu (see the post Retro trip). The table was originally in the room and stayed exactly in the same place. Tobi sanded and oiled the surface of it and repaired it by adding a new layer of veneer on the side of the table. The old painting on the wall is our farm and the old main building. Some other buildings of the painting are still existing. The shelf is also on its original place. We only painted the handles black, so it would suit better to the rest of the room. The picture on the wall is an old hand drawn map from the farm. That is all for now. The next step with the renovation is the restroom and the corridor in the main floor. Then we are finished with the main floor. We will keep you updated, when the things are going further. We also have to show our bed room, which is also almost ready. Stay tuned and enjoy the last days of Autumn!