Up on the Walls

Now that I'm home on leave with my little man, I'm finding that we're using the Living Room a lot more.  Thankfully we've spent some time fixing this space up.  We started with this:

Listing Photo

Immediately we got to work painting the walls a much lighter color to highlight the natural color of the wood, instead of making it look like the dated Golden Oak. But we still left a little to be desired with our old furniture and bad rug choice.  (We all make mistakes... don't judge.)

We finally got our act together with a beautiful Ethan Allen rug, new couch, ottoman, blue velvet wing back chairs and lamps.

  

 But if you recall, the other side of the room was a white, empty pallet.

It wasn't always like that, once upon a time we had the beautiful landscape painting that the colors of the room were based off of:

But that baby went boom- and somehow crashed to the floor and broke the frame while we were away from the house for a weekend.  We have ghosts.  Or maybe the Hubs rigged it- he always complained that the size of this photo was way too small for the room.

 But we got our hanging on and viola:

We started with a small, flat screen TV mounted on the wall.  In the past we've preferred not to have TV in the main living space, but with our only TV in the house downstairs, it just wasn't very convenient.   The compromise was a smaller TV with a low profile so that it isn't the main focus in the room, but its there to use when we want it.

I installed the TV myself a week or so before Boden made his big arrival.  I found this awesome product for only $23 that allows you to drill a hole through the wall behind the TV, and then run your wires behind the wall, down to the floor where you can plug it in.

  It even comes with a fish tape to help you guide the wires through the wall.  Genius.

But the super fun piece was this new picture the Hubs and I found at Home Goods.

  It's more than twice the height of our original picture, and 18" wider, so it does a much better job to fill the space of this huge wall.  

 I love the colors even more than our first one, and since this one is just a wrapped canvas, I don't have to worry about this frame mysteriously breaking and falling off the wall.  (I'm on to you Hubs, I'm just saying...)

So that's how just a few things on the walls brought the room from this:

 To this:

I love kicking my feet up in here, cuddling up with the little man and watching home improvement shows.  In fact, this morning I turned on the DIY Network and saw myself- our episode of Bath Crashers was on!  Its always good to watch it and remember how badly that bathroom started.  It makes me much happier about the way it all turned out.  Sure, we've had some bumps in the road, but at least there isn't carpet in there anymore. 

We've Been Making Some Changes

I have to admit that lately, after 2 bathroom renos in 3 months, a busy job and focusing all my energy on being a great mom to my 3 year old and baby on the way, my favorite house projects are the ones where you can just go purchase something and set it down in your house.  No building, no staining, just purchase and deliver.   That's why after 1 year of saving up, we're finally ready to make some changes to our Living Room.  This is the first room you see when you enter our home, setting the stage for the whole place, and being that its adjacent to the Kitchen, we use it all the time.  

If you don't remember, here's how it looked before:

And here is the very much "in progress" now:

 

We started with the rug from Ethan Allen.  Originally we went there to see the one from the HGTV Dream Home 2011 that we've been pining over for a year or so.  Once we got there we were convinced by a very helpful designer that with all the white walls and light woodwork in this room, the floor needed to be grounded with a saturated & colorful rug.  These photos don't really do the rug justice.   I think they make the rug look really dark, but in reality the colors are more muted and soft.  

 

Once the rug was in place it was time to deal with the issue of our loveseat and chair.

 While they may not look bad in the photos, these babies have been with us for 7+ years, and that micro fiber has seen a lot of action.  They were torn, stained and discolored from all the sun this room receives, not to mention that they were a little too small to really fill up this room.  We made a killing off them on Craigslist, and purchased this much more substantial couch in a tan color that has a hint of butter yellow to it.  (Maybe not in these photos, but trust me, it does.)

 

 

We're still working on end tables, lamps and other accessories, but I love how the new orange and blue accent colors work with our existing curtains and art.   (Another great suggestion from the geniuses at Ethan Allen.) 

And in place of the chair?  2 scoop back chairs in dust blue velvet give the room more seating and a pop of color.  Although Ethan Allen suggested their gorgeous wingbacks, at $900 a piece they were way out of budget.  These very similar scoop backs from Target were only $139 a piece, and I am madly in love with them.

 Did you catch that new surveyor's lamp in the above photo too?  My hubby fell in love with them when we were at Ethan Allen, but we found this look alike at JCPenny for a fifth of the price.  (Noticing a theme here?)

 The rearranging still left room for our Target slipper chair to move to the other corner of the room, and creating a more full, conversational style seating arrangement.  That armoire in the corner is still going to go, (in fact the Hubs sold it on Craigslist last night!) and will be replaced with a simple console table with a TV mounted above it. 

 
The center of the room might look pretty empty right now, but that's because we have a new, big ottoman with lots of baby storage room coming to fill up that space.  It should help to start making the room feel more full and warm.

Some more substantial end tables on either side of the couch with some big statement making lamps should cozy it up too.

So its definitely still in progress, but we're coming along.  I'm hoping that when we get all the other items in here (slowly but surely) you guys will be able to better see the vision.  I'm taking it one step at a time though, because man we have a lot to do before the kiddo shows up this fall.  My mantra lately has been "get one thing done every day," even if that one thing is just unpacking a box of baby clothes or going shopping for a pair of pants that will fit me. 

How about you guys?  Any projects at your homes?  Furniture buying?  We've been to a lot of furniture stores lately, but thankfully most have handy little stroller/carts that you can buckle your three year old into so that he doesn't try to jump on all the beds.  True story.

The Ikea Off

Over the weekend the Hubs and I picked up a couple of Ikea shelves for the Living Room.  Since most Ikea furniture builds get pretty interesting around here (and by interesting I mean that the Hubs usually curses like a sailor and throws tools), we thought we'd make a little event out of it.  

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the first ever One Project at a Time Ikea Off.  We had two identical book cases, all the required tools, and the goal was to see which one of us could build it first.  The video is just under 4 minutes and sped up in places, so don't worry, you don't have to watch us build furniture for an agonizingly long 30 minutes.  I also included sub titles for those of you watching at work, but I would suggest watching with sound if you can to experience the Hub's full pain.

 

I'm still working on the styling of these, but here's how they look today.

 Are we the only ones that nearly get divorced after purchasing cheap, Scandinavian furniture?  Seriously, I think those marriage classes should include a big Ikea build.  If you have any great Ikea build stories, please share.  Consider this group therapy. 

Opening the Window

Back on Friday I mentioned that I might tackle a fun little project in the Living Room.  Specifically, here:

 

Not a huge change, but definitely something that’s been bothering me for months now, heck a year even, since it was just over 1 year ago we walked through our big, gross rehab house for the first time.

The big window in the Living Room should be a focal point.  It’s massive in size and definitely a unique shape, but unfortunately the horizontal window blind coming across it makes it look like 2 separate windows.  Sort of builder-grade.  I promised myself that I would live with the blinds through the summer, just to see if it was something that we needed to keep the heat of the sun out and keep the house comfortable.  And the result- we never closed it.  Well… maybe once or twice.  But like Lindsey Lohan checking into her community service, the occasions were few and far between.  So this weekend, it was finally time to give it the boot.

Here’s the part that I knew, but didn’t really grasp.  That window is hellah-high.  Even Super Dad’s big ladder that I had to borrow barely made it non-extended. You might remember back from this post that I like heights just about as much as Kei$ha likes a quiet night at home, so it took me awhile to figure out my strategy.  I decided that I preferred standing on the top rung of the A frame version better than folding it out to an extension ladder and potentially having to rest the ladder on the window to get to the space in the middle.

Step one was to pry the little tabs that head the blinds into the mounting brackets with a flat head screwdriver.  There were 4 brackets across the length of the window, which meant I had to climb up, balance, pry, climb down, and then move the ladder 4 different times. 4 embarrassingly tiring climbs.  4 near death experiences.  All followed by one really scary yank on the blinds, and an attempt to gracefully lower it to the floor without dying.  It went boom.

Then I had to head back up to the place where scaredy cats go to die to remove the bracket.  I climbed back up armed with my drill.  Lucky for all of you this is when the Hubs got out of the shower and so graciously documented the experience.

And then I almost fell.  Isn’t it so sweet that my Hubs took this time to snap a photo, instead of say, breaking my fall?

I apologize to those of you that were eating anything as you just saw that image of my butt in pajama pants.  I was just trying to keep it real with you all. Quick scroll down and think happy thoughts.  Sorry for ruining your meal.

PleasetakethephotoquickbeforeIfallanddie.

In the end, I’m really happy with the results though.

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As a reminder, here is the before:

Subtle, but I think it goes a long way to make this room more impressive.  Of course we saved the blind, and packaged up all the necessary hardware with it safely so that we can always put it back up if we change our minds.  And by “we” I mean the Hubs.  Or Ryder when he’s 15.  ‘Cause this girl’s D.O.N.E.

#14 & #19- The Living Room Reveal (So Far)

We have furniture, and I finally have pics to prove it.  So without any further ado, here is our work-in-progress Living Room:

 At this point we're working with what we have, so the love seat and two chairs, as well at the end tables and ottoman are all from The Bungalow.  The rug is a new addition though.  We actually had 3 different rugs down in this space before we finally found this one (shame on me for not documenting the process with photos), and in the end this one seemed to have the right color pallet, but wasn't too busy. To be honest, I'm not 100% sold on it yet, but after searching for literally months and hauling four different 8 x 11 rugs priced from $200-$600 into this space, I am the most happy with this option. Jason loves this one, and the phenomenal price ($120 for a 8 x 11 at Home Depot!) makes this a rug that we can definitely replace down the line if it still hasn't won me over and we happen across "The Perfect One."  The curtains are actually from The Bungalow as well, as we discovered just before the move that although you usually leave window treatments with the home, curtain panels are the exception as they are not directly attached or exactly sized for the space.  You leave the rods, but not the curtains, which is great news for us, at least for now, as they were a free and easy upgrade.

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Here's another shot of that console table that we showed you yesterday, wider to show the great new art we found at Home Goods for just $49.  We love that it feels natural without being too literal, and it includes all the colors from our pallet, while introducing a few new ones like the cool blue.  It's just so calming to look at.  We need to get something to the right side of this to balance it out a bit, but we'll wait until the perfect thing finds us.  I got that little plant for free at a recent spa grand opening, and potted it in an old utensil canister from my kitchen.  (I drilled a few holes in the bottom of it with a masonry bit to provide drainage.) Hurray for free decor!  Now let's just hope that I can keep it alive.

We're still working on different decor to sit on the fireplace, but we love the 2 vases on the left hand side that we found at Home Goods for just $30 for both.  The green picks up on the green tones in the carpet which we like, because we don't want to over do it on the rust and brown accessories. The birch on the right hand side we just had on hand and are using as a place holder until we find the right thing.

See that molding around the base of the fireplace?  It may look easy, but that guy gave me some serious anger management issues over the last week as I attempted dozens of times to cut the precise corners.  (Which ended up being a crazy 19 degree horizontal cut next to a 33.5 degree vertical cut.  I'm still not sure how I figured it out, but I did take the time to trash talk the fireplace once the cuts were successfully installed.  "You think you're so hot?  I own you!  I. Own. You!"

We actually almost didn't bring the armoire in the above picture to The Lodge, as we thought it had seen it's last day, but I think it may have found new life here, at least for now.  Behind those doors is our embarrassing little secret, a 27" tube TV.  Yep, the kind you can't even give away for free these days.  We don't watch a lot of TV at our house, so we really just use the one big TV down in the Family Room. It's nice to have a small TV in this room though on the occasion that Ryder gets to watch a little Sesame Street while I make dinner in the kitchen, or if Jason and I are having a South Park vs. Biggest Loser standoff at the TV downstairs.  Since I definitely don't want this giant (and not in a good way) TV on display, the armoire suits it's purpose and stays for now.  The color is right, and it's just rustic looking enough to fit.  We're going to give it some new rubbed bronze hardware which I think will make a big impact. 

This overhead view gives a better shot of the great colors in the rug.  I have always hated how our love seat and chair read a little pinkish beige in certain light, but as our motto, it stays for now.  We are definitely on the search for a view good throw pillows as well, so don't get all judgey just yet, these guys are temporary. 

As a reminder, here's the before:

Listing Photo

and the after:

Note to Hubby: Need better camera with wide angled lens for my birthday.  Love you.

Before:

Listing Photo

And after:

Wouldn't a wider shot with a better camera be so nice?  Love you Hubs. 

PS- You may have noticed a little switcheroo on the fireplace in the photo above.  I took the first photos in the morning before work, and then came home over lunch to take a few more with some different lighting.  In that time the Hubs and Ry had come home from the store with that light (yep that's a lamp that plugs in) on the right side of the fireplace, an item that I had previously nixed when we saw it out shopping together as "too red."  So when Jay brought it home from his solo trip, I knew he was really serious about it.  Then, to prove how far my little design clueless man has come, he says to me, "I know you think it's too red, but I was thinking that we could remove the red fabric and replace it with something more neutral, maybe with some greens in it to balance it out."  And you know what... I think he's right.  Don't worry, we'll blog all about it when we get there. 

(He's probably going to kill me for recounting that story by the way, because his buddies will all make fun of him.  But in order to do that his friends would have to admit that they spend time on their naked lady machines reading design blogs, and that would sort of defeat the purpose of mocking him.  So I'm going to bet he'll make it through this post unscathed.)

So what do you guys think?  I know it's a little tough with my small little camera, but I'm working on it.  (Wink wink.)  I promise to post better photos as soon as I can.  In the mean time I'll be sitting on my couch, which is located in the Living Room, which has a floor again.  All is right in the world.  Amen.

#8 & #16- I Cheated

Yep, I'm a total cheat.  I know I said in The List that I would make/build tables for both the Living Room and the Entryway, but I didn't.  I bought them.  (Gasp!)  I could have totally made them by myself, and probably would have saved a little money too, but I didn't.  I'd be ashamed if it didn't feel so good that these rooms are finally starting to take shape.

It all started with a little car key situation.  In our house, we don't have a His car and Her car, but rather switch off depending on where we are traveling to save on gas mileage and whether we need the bigger car to haul something.  The phrase "where are the keys?" is said nearly a half dozen times a day, and even Ry gets into it.  I'll say, "Hey buddy, want to go to the store?" and he responds, "Yes.  Where's the keys?"  Its like his own little judgmental social commentary.  I don't need this from you right now Half Pint, I'm looking through the hamper for a set of car keys.  So after a month of keys ending up all over the house, including once in the fridge, we knew our marriage would only survive if we created a central key location.  And then I stumbled upon this little guy at Home Goods for just $35.

It was a nice combination of black & brown wood that matches our current pieces, fit the tiny little space in the front entry, and had a nice rustic look.  See that awesome little wood carved bowl sitting on top?  BAM-  Car Keys Bowl.  The drawer works perfectly for sunglasses storage too, another item we are frequently scavenging the house for.  Actually, I never would have considered placing a table in this space prior, but it fits perfectly and really helps define the space.

Here's a wide shot which includes the frame of our amazing apricot tree from The Bungalow, in the Spring, Fall and Winter.  The twigs in the vase are even from The Bungalow, not because I'm crazy obsessive like that, but because I cut some from a bush outside years ago for some cheap decor, and they somehow made the trip with us to the new home.   This sweet little corner is actually one of my favorite spots now, as it's a nice little ode to our first home.

Once we got a taste of the quick and easy buy your furniture method, it felt too good to stop.  And that's when we came across this guy in Target:

 This little console was a bit more spendy at $89, but it was discounted down from it's original $129, and you know I can't buy anything without a sale tag on it.  It's a sickness.  It was the right color, the right size, and heck, it feels good to just buy something rather than spend the day building it, doesn't it?

We're still playing around with what goes on it, but for now the room is starting to take shape.  The lesson I've learned?  It's all about give and take.  Sometimes it feels amazing to build a piece of furniture from scratch, saving some money and truly making it your own.  And other times, after 30 days of concrete hauling, wood chopping and endless painting, it feels really great to buy the perfect piece, and simply place it in the room ready to go.  Don't worry, there are plenty more pieces of furniture to build in this house, I just don't want to think about them right now. 

What about you guys?  Any great furniture deals lately?  Where do you find great furniture, any suggestions? That's not to say that I will buy any more, but you know... just in case. :)