We had several problems with this room. The massive fireplace was a cold sink in the winter time because it was on the north side of the house and on an exterior wall. You could feel a constant draft coming from the fireplace. The room was on the same heating zone as the rest of the first floor and would be 2-3 degs cooler.
The fireplace was in poor condition (poorly built in my opinion). The bricks needed to be repointed on the outside (old mortar chiseled out and new mortar applied). The previous owner was cheap and did a hack job repointing certain areas. When we had periods of heavy rain, the bricks would absorb moisture and water would drip down the inside of the chimney.
The windows in the room were in poor shape, both interior and exterior.
The last issue was the dark pine wood everywhere. Ugly. Plus, the wide pine planks squeak when you walk across them. Drives me nuts.
The house has 3 fireplaces so I had no qualms about getting rid of this one. So my vision was to rip the fireplace out and have a small bump-out addition replace it. This space would have new built-ins and would house the TV.
Here's what the room looked like a couple years back.
I hired a contractor to demolish the chimney and build the bump out addition. He also replaced the windows for that family room. Here's a photo of them taking the chimney down.
The bricks were loaded in a dumpster that went to a recycling center. I calculated that I had approximately 5-6 tons of bricks to dispose of.
Here's a shot of the bump-out before it was painted.
The next step was to have a contractor come in and spray foam the addition. He also foamed the floor and the attic as well as the floor and attic of the main house. Closed-cell foam is incredible in terms of insulation. There's no air infiltration whatsoever in the room. After the contractor had foamed the addition, I decided to rip out the rest of the walls of that room and replace the fiberglass batts with foam insulation. The picture below shows the sprayed foam on the right and the insulation that I installed on the left. It's foam board that you can buy at Lowes or Home Depot. I just cut to fit between the studs and caulked all of the gaps.
I had my plasterer hang new blue board and he plastered the walls. This is one home improvement skill I do not ever tend to learn. Plastering is an art that takes years of experience to do it right. Plastered walls is popular in New England because it looks better than drywall and it's stronger. Here's a shot of the room after the blue boards were hung and the seams were coated.
The next step was for him to coat the entire room twice with veener plaster. The reason why blueboard is used is because it has a special coating that helps plaster stick to it and bond better.
After the room was plastered, I ripped up old floor and renailed the plywood subfloor with ringshank nails so it will not squeak again. I had a contractor come in and install a new 3 1/2" oak floor (it's an inch wider than the typical oak strip flooring). Another contractor installed the built-in cabinets where the fireplace used to be. I installed new wood baseboard trims and new window trim. I also reinstalled the heating baseboards. I also did the electrical & media wiring for the room. Finally, I painted the new walls, ceiling, the trim, and the heating baseboards. I had a company install a cherry countertop on top of the cabinets.
Here's shot of the cabinets and 52" TV.
Inside the left center cabinet, I have a Yamaha stereo receiver, my cable box and room for a BD player or a PS3 in the near future. In the right center cabinet, I have a 6 port component switcher, an xbox running XBMC, a Gamecube, and a Wii. I do not plan to put any other consoles in there. The color of the room is Santorini Blue with the TV wall being a tan color. The trim is painted white.
Here's a shot of the new leather sectional featuring 4 recliners!
Sometime this winter, I will be cleaning up the basement and will start finishing that off. That room will have my other consoles (N64, PS1, PS2, Dreamcast, Saturn).
