Monday, July 27, 2009

Living Room

Considering this is the room you enter when you walk through the front door we probably should have tackled it first. Instead it became a temporary storage room, and was the last thing I wanted to see everyday when I walked into the house after a long day at work.

Here are some pics of the room when we first moved in (and before we started using it for storage!).




(Please excuse the squares I painted onto the wall - we were trying to decide between blue or green.)

I had been collecting things for the room so in April when Josh's dad and step mom came to visit we quickly moved all the boxes out and made a temporary set up with a few things we'd bought and some other things we had lying around.
Then at the end of May we finally started working on the room. The walls were dusty and dirty, the blinds weren't in the greatest shape, and there was that less-than-awesome entry light. We painted 2 walls and the ceiling a light, muted blue and the other 2 walls a slightly darker shade from the same paint swatch. I really hope we love the color for a looong time because painting those high walls and ceiling was brutal! Then we replaced the blinds and the light fixture.

After that I got started on the fun part. I was aiming for a bright and cheery room and I'm really happy with how it turned out!



We decided to leave the upper windows uncovered. I've noticed that some people in our neighborhood have blinds up there and others have used frosted window film but we like the light coming in. .

I still need to work on the staircase railings. They look white from far away but they are actually very dirty with tons of stains. I need to repaint all the white and also think of something to do with that oak - I am just not into the light wood look.
(That half wall going up the stairs looks white in the pic but its actually the same color as the other walls)


Then there was that long, tall wall opposite the sofa that needed something.

We decided some kind of organization system would be perfect because it could fill up some wall space and give us some storage space. We had a shelf from our old apartment that was just sitting in the garage unused so we made a quick trip to target for some storage baskets, mounted the shelf on the wall and ta-da!



I added a large collection of frames to take up even more of that wall space.
Zeke kept sneaking into the photos - he's such a camera hog!


You are probably thinking that having a white sofa is pure madness. That sofa used to have a beige slip cover and one day Hobbes expressed her anal glands on one of the cushions (yes, you really read that) and when we washed it it faded unevenly and never looked quite the same. My rational is that I can bleach the slip cover as many times as I need to and it will keep looking good. (I do have to vacuum it to remove cat hair fairly often though.)

I would say that 90% of the things in the room are from Target and Ikea and the rest are accessories and frames I've picked up at various places so it was a very affordable make-over.

I probably broke some decorating rule by having a cool color scheme in the living room and a warm color scheme in the family room right next to it but I don't care!

We really love it!!!

3 comments:

Terry said...

It looks fantastic. A very cheery, bright space to greet you when you enter the home. I love everything about it. Great job!!!!

Baldwin Family said...

I love your color choice! You do an amazing job. It looks wonderful, very cozy and classy at the same time. We are Ikea junkies. Love it!

Brandon and Becca said...

First off this looks awesome. I need you to come finish the decorating in our house.
Second...I found a quiz just for you.
http://www.sporcle.com/games/pearljam_songs.php