Living Room Renovation

I was going to title this "Oh my God, what have you done". Which I think is what my wife is thinking.

Before - The old fireplace with it's two wings - made storage difficult in this room

 My projects at home have a habit of escalating. Over the winter we decided that although our open fire place looks nice it's rubbish at keeping us warm. No matter how much wood we chuck on to it, it makes no difference. So we decided that in the summer we would replace it with a wood burning stove.
This is the project I've just started. The trouble is I thought if I'm doing the fireplace I might as well do the skirting and architrave (half of it's missing or doesn't match anyway). Then I thought - well if I'm doing that I might as well do the floor as well. So it becomes a complete refurb job.
The floor is a suspended timber floor and although there's no problems with it structurally, its is cold as the wind blows up and through it making the house tricky to keep warm. I could insulated between the timber joists but the old rat and mice nests under the floor made me think I've made the right decision to insulate and then concrete the floor. Although it's more work it should mean that I never have to do work on this floor again (I know I'll get comments on how I should keep the timber joists in but I've think this is the best in the long term).

After - How to knock money off the value of your house!

Once the concrete has cured and dried I'll lay a oak floor on top and then build in some bookshelves and storage for toys as well as a new fireplace. On top of this I'll change the radiator and all the skirting and architraves. Should keep me busy for a couple of nights!