Travel wall & demolition time

In my last post, I promised to show the wall where I have framed and hung my travel pictures, mementos and souvenirs. It is in my sun room...my absolute favorite room. Alas, it is also the only room not heated in the house so I have not used it so much recently due to the ridiculous cold snap we just experienced.

Well, without any further ado...here is the wall:

Now, I know that I should have created paper replicas of the frames and planned it better but I was feeling like a free spirit that day so there are some wonky lines but I justify it by saying it is a wonky space.

My favourite thing is having tea in this room and remembering all the travel adventures. Speaking of travel, I booked another trip to Paris for April. This time with the sisters and mom. My plans for shopping during my last trip were thwarted due to "incompatible" traveling styles.

In other magic house news, I have started my basement "reno's". Here are some before shots:

This is the wonderful current paint on the studio/guest room walls

The stairwell with the horrendous carpet

The basement hallway wall

View from the studio to the stairs

Here is the hole I created by trying to remove an old pipe. It wasn't connected to anything. Just sticking out into the room.

The floors with the lino removed..there were only 6 different lino patterns discovered in the excavation.

The pile of lino...my neighbours must love me.

Safety first! I also wore gloves and a face mask because I think there may be asbestos...eeek!

I realized there are tons of little steps to do just the art studio/guest room and the stairs/hallway. Here is my preliminary list of steps (in no particular order):
1) Sand basement hall wall and last layer of mud; then re-sand - DONE
2) Vacuum after sanding- DONE
3) Prep Studio walls (patch and sand) - IN PROGRESS
4) Fix hole in studio wall with drywall patch (mud, sand, repeat)
5) Buy better latch for studio window
6) Gyprock by stairs (mud, sand, repeat)
7) Pull up carpet (I think they glued the awful carpet down!!)
8) Pull up lino - DONE
9) Dust/vacuum Studio - DONE
10) Move stuff to guest bedroom part of studio before prep - DONE
11) Buy baseboard for walls
12) Rent saw to cut baseboards
13) Learn how to do baseboards
14) Sand door/closet trim
15) Prime trim
16) Paint trim
17) Prime basement hall& Studio walls
18) Paint basement hall wall & studio walls (using leftover blue paint from upstairs living room)
19) Decide floor treatment (I was just going to paint the floors white but there is a section (1 ft x 1 ft) that appears rotten so will need to replace). Maybe I will do black/white checker tiles for a retro look.
20) Do floors
21) Learn how to do flooring
22) Re-paint chimney brick (over awful green paint)
23) Paint door
24) Paint closets
25) Paint stairwell
26) Finish window casement
27) Buy new handrail & install so it is up to building code
28) Add bookshelves in hallway for built-in effect - TBD
29) Clean window wells
30) re-arrange furniture
31) Replace burned out light bulb
32) Fix door knob
33) Paint over vents?? (Can I do this?)
34) Put a door on the stairwell cubby....or perhaps built-ins because the space is not insulated.

I hope to be more active in my blog this year but life seems to keep going at a quick pace...no promises. Sorry