Upstairs Remodel - Before [ - Doing it on the Quick and Dirty

While undertaking the monumental job of the kitchen remodel, we simultaneously looked at changing the look of the entire upstairs, which includes 3 bedrooms, a bath, kitchen, dining area and living room. The house was well cared for but sorely in need of an update. Carpeting throughout the main living areas was just wrong. The paint colors were off and heavy drapery gave the space an outdated persona much in need of a makeover. On top of this, we had to deal with a glittery-disco popcorn ceiling finish that screamed old-school cheese.

The first step was to peek under the carpet to see what we were dealing with. The gods were in our favor as we discovered oak hardwoods under the carpeting. Despite the less-than-stellar condition of the hardwoods they were a huge improvement over the carpeting. To stay in line with our green approach to the remodel, we carefully removed the carpet and rolled it up. I posted an ad on the free stuff section of Craigslist and within the hour someone came by and picked up all the carpeting, saving space in the land fill and saving the purchase and subsequent manufacture of new carpeting.

With the carpeting out of the way, we carefully removed all the nails and staples from the floor and then got to work on the paint. The first step was the popcorn ceiling. Rather than taking on the painstaking and potentially toxic job of scraping off of the popcorn [mid century popcorn finish is notoriously laden with asbestos] we were advised from some 'expert' friends to simply paint over the popcorn glitter finish with a neutral paint. We borrowed a paint sprayer for this job [a must!] and worked those deltoids in covering up the old disco finish. The results looked awesome and changed the look immediately. We then selected 3 different shades for the upstairs main area, adding transitional tones as the eye progresses throughout the home.

Separate colors were chosen for each bedroom, with the master also having a complimentary accent wall color to draw focus to a large head board painting above the bed.

Finally we changed out the old school lighting throughout the upstairs, choosing directional spots with dimmers to maximize the impact of our art collection.

The photos here show the before...a nice homey feel but not the slick modern look we were looking for...