Old Becomes New... Living Room Renovation Update: Day 8

As with any apartment renovation (when you're living amid the mayhem), after the first week or so, the thrill begins to fade somewhat as claustrophobia—and mountains of dust—take over. Yup, we're about there now... but progress continues with some pretty thrilling changes to my Brooklyn Heights apartment living room.

Foremost I'm still thrilled with the brick accent wall we uncovered over the fireplace (2), which offers just enough 19th Century charm without overtaking the room. And the brick—which has yet to be scrubbed—is nice and light in color.

Meanwhile, (1) a new fireplace is being built from scratch, because, as is so often the case, when the original surround came off, the bricks behind it pretty much came tumbling down. Man, whoever originally built that was apparently cross eyed and perhaps had one hand and only four fingers. A mess.

More new: For a decade, I've had my eye on the radiator that took up the entire wall to the left of the fireplace... mighty valuable real estate in a small room. As of yesterday, contractor Angelo reconstructed the old radiator, making it smaller (never knew you could do that) and neatly tucking it into the right window (4). Hurrah!

The other big coup is located over the small cove where the sofa is placed. In order to meet legal code, one of the electrical outlets had to be raised from floor level up to 18 inches on the wall, which meant new wiring was required to run through the wall—which thankfully was already torn down to prep for new drywall.

That allowed for a series of three subtle pot lights (3) to be installed above the cove, which will provide either bright light for reading or soft mood light—thanks to a dimmer switch on the wall above the relocated plug. Now that's just sweet.

Next: Remaining drywall goes up to seal it all, before the next biggie... new hardwood floors. *