It’s been one week since I last returned from the ranch house. We got so much work done in the last two weeks. We finally removed all the rock, and we only have a couple more tasks to complete before we are completely done with all of the demo! I seriously can’t wait until we are at the rebuilding point. Our next visit should be the last of the demo and the first of the rebuild.

Today’s Saturday Inspiration is going to take us into the living room. Oh, that living room! I can NOT wait to tell you about this living room. Let me start by saying the living room didn’t even make it onto the Zillow. I was able to see much of the house online, but it wasn’t until my agent sent me her own photos that we saw the living room. When I saw the pictures all I could say was “What is this? What is this? Is this something inside or outside?” Go ahead, you tell me…

What the heck is this? Is it a planter? Is it some sort of outside place, in the house? I had no idea, but the worst part was how intrigued I was by it. Seriously folks, what is wrong with me when something like this kinda takes my breath away?

This space is an atrium. The floor steps down into a tile floor that slants into a drain. There is a drain because the small planter is just that, a planter. There is no base in it, it’s just a dirt hole in the center of the house. Next to it is a jacuzzi. Yep, I really meant to type that. It gets better. The ceiling you see there between the beams is made of sliding garage doors. There is a button in the kitchen cabinet that used to open the doors to a glass ceiling. So, a very long story short, once upon a time people used to sit in the jacuzzi in the middle of the living room, surrounded by lush foliage, looking up to the stars above. What an amazing idea… on paper. This spot is how the ranch earned the name Boogie Nights. Thanks to my sister Michelle. It stuck with us, because it really does look like Burt Reynolds’ house in the movie Boogie Nights.

So there I was, standing in the front entry of the house and looking at the jacuzzi. Ideas were spinning around in my head. I was immediately planning. I even said out loud, “This is so much better then I expected!” My agent responded with, “Really?!” She was a little stunned. I knew exactly what we would be doing in this spot. At least at first.

If I’m learning anything from this renovation, it’s that your original ideas or plans tend to change, a lot. It’s better to just go with the flow of it all, and don’t stress out over it. That wont help.

Here is the set up:

 

Job Number one, was to level the floors, of course. However, everything in the space needed to be brought down to the higher floor level. So we got to work.

First up was clearing out the Jacuzzi. We had no idea what to expect, and this is what we found.

PS A hole like this will make you realize what a friend is. My girlfriend Kim stayed up there that first week and helped to destroy a ton of stuff, including this jacuzzi. Friends like her don’t come along often.

 

As you can see above, I cut through a water pipe. That was a really fun adventure. We were told by a plumber the pipe was dead, so I just cut right through it during demo. I’m glad I had the area closed off with plastic. We were saved by Gary, our floor building guy, who had no problem closing up the pipe.  Can you imagine the fun we had in those first moments? We were running for water mains, grabbing buckets, laughing and freaking out. Also, check out the rotted-out post. That’s what happens when you put wood around a jacuzzi in your house. Some things just should not go together. The good part was we actually got to see what the Jacuzzi looks like with water in it. P.U.

We had an engineer come evaluate the placement of the posts around the area and we found we could remove three of them. One of the posts was the rotted one, so that was a celebration. The whole experience is about the good news and the bad news and not really getting too nutted up about either. Almost every problem can be solved or ideas can be changed to go in a different direction.

Alix and her boyfriend, Steven came up for Thanksgiving. While they were there, Steven’s car broke. I felt lucky to be on the other end of his car frustration, because while he was repairing it he had some time to work out the frustration on my rock wall. Between the three of us we removed all the rocks, some wood, and lowered the jacuzzi a bit more. I like to make visitors renovate my house, can you tell?

That is how I left the house in November, and this is how I found it when I returned in January. The sub floors are almost in!!

While I was there in January, Gary filled the planter with concrete. No more moisture under the floor area!

 

So this is how I left the Living room. No more jacuzzi, no more dirt, or rocks. Last week our new plumber came to start the removal of all water pipes in the wall and floor of the bar area (Soon to be revealed). He is removing our electric water heater that is in the cabinet behind this wall and replacing it with a new gas water heater in the garage. We also only have two posts at the corners that will later be sheet rocked.

Ok, are you still with me? I hope you are because now we have to look at some ideas of what to do in here. As always, feel free to tell me what you’d do! I love the ideas.

 

So this is what I have so far. My dilemmas are what type of chairs do I want, and what type of lighting do I want? I thought right away to buy a round chandelier with up facing lights, but when we raise the floors, the ceilings tend to become lower. Not sure if I can find a light that is big enough but not so low that my tall people hit their heads on it.

Thanks for hanging with me on this long post. The living room really is the biggest problem in the house and the biggest transformation we will have. I can’t believe we are so close to being done with it!