Don't let it stop you (or how the living room has taken over my life)

Even the threat of a little asbestos didn't deter me from continuing my demo duties last night. It's really dusty work so I'm hoping to add a little water to the mix tonight and cut that down a bit. I'm wearing a dust mask but still feel like I'm getting a lung full of the stuff. And poor little Rudy doesn't have any sort of protection. The thought of her wearing a dust mask is pretty cute though.

So far it looks like the header over the "cutout" continues across the doorway which is so odd. The doorway header seems to almost be floating in space. Well not entirely. It is connected to studs coming up from the floor but doesn't appear to be connected to anything at the top. Oh and it's a rather substantial piece of wood.

My dad seems a bit worried that I have my house fix priorities out of whack but here is how I got to this point. I ordered the couch a few weeks ago and should arrive in November. I have to paint the walls and ceiling and don't want any possibility that the fancy new furniture will get paint drips on them. In order to really paint the walls/ceiling I needed to remove the breakfast bar and its supports. The new TV that I want (LCD!!!) will be sitting in front of the wall area vacated by the breakfast bar so that also needs to be purchased before said couch arrives. So after the granite was gone the remaining wall looked just plain silly. To make the living room into the place I really want it to be I decided now would be the best time to see if that newly offending wall could come down. See dad, it all makes sense?!? At least to me.

So here's the list of things that now need to happen to the living room (Subject to change with blog notice):
1) Complete removal of drywall to make sure the wall can come down.
2) Remove all of the wall. (Rent reciprocating saw!)
3) Repair new opening. (Drywalling??!?! Yikes!)
4) Remove silly little crown molding
5) Paint Ceiling (already have the paint for this)
6) Paint Walls (need to find the right color)
7) Buy new TV and TV stand.
8) Have fabu new couch delivered.

If all goes well the living room should be up and running some time in November. Why does that seem like a long way off and way too soon all at the same time? Keep your fingers crossed because if I can get this done in this time line I can then have the living room as a sanctuary while moving on to the bedroom and den fixes. But let's not even let my brain think on those two right now. You know how easily I am distracted.