Living Room Makeover

I never thought in a million years that I would be sitting here staring at my living room walls and planning all the things that I was going to hang on them. 

We bought our house almost 10 years ago from an older couple who left the house exactly how it was when it was built. Carpet and all. So when we moved in the only thing new in the house was the kitchen countertops and sink. They were still not my favorite, but I couldn't complain. The living room was probably the worst. Not only was it the first thing that you saw when you walked through the front door, but to me it was ugly! 

Over the years I was able to talk my husband into letting me do little things here and there. Then there were times that I would do stuff while he was at work and just let it be a surprise for him when he got home. Then last year I was finally able to talk him into letting me hire someone to come and redo the walls and buy me new floors. 

I don't think the room is anywhere near complete and I plan on changing it some more, but for now I am happy and like spending time in the room I was once disgusted by. So here is a little walk down memory lane with me while I show you what my living room once was compared to what it is today. 

Over the Years

Now

Linking to: Savvy Southern Style WOW Us Wednesday

aqua chevron and cowhide

Last week I posted an inspiration board I put together for my living room that featured bright oranges. But the more I looked at it the more I didn't like it. So I took it down.

I got to thinking about everything I had and really wanted to use as much as possible so I could use the money for other things. So in saying that I made up another inspiration board that has a completely different look and feel than the first.

I won't lie. I like this one so much better! It feels nice and comfortable. And the best part is my hubby approves. Here is the little inspiration board I put together using things that I already have lying around and just adding a few here and there.

And here is how my living room looks right now... It's progress :)

Here is a close-up of the flowers on the coffee table. 

i need of a decorator

The holidays are fast approaching and we will be staying home this year. in light of that, I want to have my family over for Christmas Eve and not have my house looking like a hott mess. The only problem is I need to get it in gear! I am such a procrastinator it’s not even funny.

The first thing people see if they walk in through the front door is the entryway. My teeny tiny entryway.

I painted my door a while back and recently bought a new entry table that I got at Hobby Lobby for $30!

 

My idea is to remove the picture frames from the wall and hang a mirror above the table to make the whole space appear bigger. Here are a few of my favorite ideas...

  

The next area people see is the living room.

I have rearranged my living room a million times over the past couple of years and the best arrangement for its odd shape is the picture below to the left. It feels a lot more open that way. The bottom right picture shows you the huge wall across the back that I need to find something to do with.

  

I really need to get that horrible paneling off my walls! Then I am going to paint them the same color as my kitchen :) Bar Harbor Beige. But maybe cut by 50% or so just to make it a little brighter.

 

I really want to replace my cowhide rug with a cute zebra rug :)
I found a couple that are actually pretty affordable.

Other than that I don’t have a clue what I want to do with my living room :(

Why does decorating have to be so hard???

*sigh*

fall mantle

This past week I have been getting my house ready for my favorite season... Fall!

it is so much fun to get out all the pumpkins and leaves to spread around the house. I honestly don’t think that I have enough, but you know how that goes :)

This last week I went and bought some new frames for my mantle since we recently moved out TV. I personally like this setup way better than when we had the TV up there. But that is a whole nother post which is coming soon!

Here are some pictures of our Fall mantle this year!

And of course I had to throw in some antlers :)

Ghosts of Living Room Pasts

If you read yesterdays post you know that my living room is my major project this weekend. I found some pictures to show you how it looked before I talked my hubby into letting me paint the walls.

Here is the living room in early 2009. We bought the house in 05’ so I went four years with these brown walls. Now I know that they are not that bad, but to me they just screamed 1980’s! Michael loved them, but I was home all day and the brown walls on top of the brown carpet was just way too much.

I just had to throw this in the mix. This is the tile that I am pulling up this weekend as well.
Is this stuff not awful?!? I can’t believe that I have not got rid of it sooner!

Note: Please excuse the crazy mess that is going on in this pic.
This is the living room after we painted it. It was a pain to paint because of the paneling on the walls, but in all I am happy that we ended up painting it. I think it brightened up the place. You can also tell that all of the furniture we had was just a hodge podge of stuff that we had collected over the course of our marriage. That couch, when it was new, was the most comfortable couch on earth! I literally slept on it the last 3 months of my pregnancy with Jacob. It was soooo comfortable! Unfortunately, the coffee table was not really kid friendly. Those sharp corners and wobbly babies did not get along. And the carpet you see a little bit of there was the oldest carpet I had ever seen. It was the original carpet from 1982!

And here is my living room these days with a few adjustments here and there. The carpet was the first thing to go. One day after I tripped over the carpet that was bunching in the hall I decided enough was enough! I went and bought a heavy duty box cutter and started tearing it out. The funny thing is when Michael left for work that morning we had carpet, when he came home it was all in the dumpster :) It was so old that the padding underneath had deteriorated. Yuck! The best transformation though was Michael getting me new furniture for Christmas last year. I know it wasn’t brand new, but it was new to me :)

You have now seen the changes I have made to my living room over the last couple of years.
I will post pics next week of the new wall color and soon I will be able to show you all the new floors!

A Very Merry Christmas, Part I

Thanks to Michael’s great choice in presents this year, our living room is getting a much needed makeover. I got some new furniture, well new to me furniture {the best part is the sofa reclines!!!} and soon I will have a brand new used cowhide rug to cover my concrete floors and cowhide throw pillows to match. I can’t wait to get it all pieced together! It will be a slow process seeing how I still need to finish the walls, do something with the floors, replace light switch covers and find me some window treatments. Whew! It exhaust me just thinking about it all.

I’m not a recliner kind of person, but this one is so comfy, it just hugs you all over!

This was taken today. I had to rearrange everything when I took down the tree. You know looking at this picture, I am not digging the Brandied Pear colored walls. Maybe it is just the flash, because they do not look like that in real life. They are not near that white, more like an off white.

This picture is more like what our walls look like. The lighting looks really bad, but the color is truer {is that how you spell that?} to what the actual walls look like.

Becca, I hope you liked this post, because it is just for you! :)

Christmas time is almost here!

I have to say that other than the fact that the Christmas tree is up, there are tons of presents to wrap and I’m broke… it does not feel like Christmas at all! Right now it is 66* outside and the high today is supposed to be in the 80’s. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am all about the warm weather and flip flops, but not for Christmas! Okay, let me clarify that… it is only okay to be this warm if you are spending Christmas at the beach! It’s even too warm around for a fire or sipping hot coco. And the worst part is, everywhere you look something is fire hazard since we have not had rain since September!

Even with the warm weather I have been making it feel like Christmas throughout the house. I finally have my tree complete, now all I have to do is wrap presents and fill stockings.

And yes, my tree is a little is a little untraditional {and leans to the left a little for some reason} this year. Instead of going with the traditional red and green that defines Christmas, I went with something fun. I have turquoise, leopard and camo ornaments. I even made my own tree skirt this year out of fuzzy leopard material. And you can see in the background my horribly ugly window treatments that will be replaced with the ones I bought as soon as I get the curtain rods up.

Michael brought me home these horns yesterday from his hunting trip that I decided to use as decorations.

The camo stockings that you see here in the picture were handmade by my friend, Abby and I. I had looked everywhere for camo stockings for the boys, but was unable to find some for a decent price. Being on a budget, I decided to buy some fabric and let Abby sew them. 

And here is Michael redecorating the mantle for me last night!

An edger and a foam roller

Here is my living room wall before…
(please excuse the mess)

Here is the wall in progress…

 
And here is sweet Baylee sleeping while I do all the work :)

 
More to come!

Sneak Peek

Here is a sneak peek of the colors I have picked out for the living room!

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I can see the light!

My cute table lamp I picked up yesterday for less than $10 :)

Playing with Paint

Today I was playing around with the Sherwin-Williams color visualizer and a picture of my living room. My friend, Fern, that had came over to help me suggested some colors that would look good on my living room walls and I tried them out on a picture I took today. They won’t be these exact colors, but they will be pretty close.

Please forgive the sloppy lines on the painting. They make it really hard to “paint” on those things :) I have to say that I really like the way that the colors came out on the picture.I did paint the curtain the color that I want my curtains to be and I painted my front door. I have not decided whether I want a black door or a red door. And the fireplace mantle will be a different color as well, but I was only allowed to paint 5 things at a time *sigh*

The colors that I used on the walls today were: Sherwin-Williams #6201 Thunderous and Sherwin-Williams # 7017 Dorian Gray and the trim in Sherwin-Williams # 7008 Alabaster.

I am hoping to have the walls painted and at least the floors in by Christmas. But…. I’m not going to hold my breath :)

Living Room Makeover

Yesterday I decided it was a good day to rearrange my living room. I wasnt sure if I was going to be able to move everything, but I did. I cannot find a pic of my living room before and I forgot to take one so... for you to get an idea of what it looked like before: the couch was against the wall where the chair is, the TV was acroos the room directly in front of the couch and the chair was where the TV is now. And I want to apologize in advance for the huge mess! I'm still workin on it (:

I love the look of the dead flowers... I know I'm weird.