Back Room Befores

So we've mentioned the back room renovation several times, but we haven't really explained why it needs renovated. You see, it's not that we're just reno happy over here (although sometimes that would be a true statement), but the back room is really in need of a lot of TLC. Caution, some pictures are quite disturbing, well, at least if you've had to live with it like this for several years. Here we go:

This is side of the room that we plan to use as a dining room/small reading area. That's our wonderful dining table and chairs covered up in the corner. At first glance it's not so bad, but just wait for it.

Here's a view of the other side of the room. That doorway on the left leads into the kitchen. And yes, the washer and dryer set up is very awkward. That's one of the things we're planning on fixing.

 But the real problem that needs fixing is the ceiling.

You see, about four years ago the roof in the back room started to leak, and although it has since been re-roofed, the damage to the ceiling tiles has never been taken care of, and it's bad.

 Although none of the ceiling tiles have ever got around to completely falling down, it doesn't exactly make for the most attractive room.This stain is our...favorite, if you could call a stain a favorite that is, because it looks like a brain and spinal scan to us.

Another feature of this room was the amount of screws/nails/randomness that was in the walls. You never had to put in a screw to hang anything up in this room, just look in the general area you want to hang something and you were most likely set.

We aren't quite sure what this little box thing and the stuff above it are, we think it might be some sort of switch or something.

All in all we removed 55+ nails/screws/randomness from the wall (we counted 55 originally, but then found more after we thought we were done). Here's a picture of the pile we removed:

So that's what's up with the back room renovation, and why we felt the need to tackle it. Some of our plans for the room are to tear down the ceiling, add more and better lighting, move the dryer over next to the washer, paint and take care of a few other things as well. We'll try to keep you pretty up-to-date on everything, but since we're doing it ourselves it's not moving at the speed of light, but it is coming along. I'll post early next week sometime with the progress thus far.