Our living room has always been a challenge for me since we bought our house three years ago... it's a bit on the small side, has windows on two walls, one wall is more like the entry way/ hallway, and then the smallest wall has a closet with a stupid door right in the middle... curses... why would they put a door like that in the middle of a wall? Makes no sense... So, yes, it's been a design dilemma for years...
Here's what it looked like last week...
See? Big stupid door right in the middle...
The main picture window - also a bit of a challenge, but it's looking much better now that I bit the bullet and ordered custom blinds for it!
...and the hallway/ entryway situation...
The wall colors we chose many years ago - when we first moved in. Since our previous house had big bright bold colors, I thought we should do more muted mature tones... These colors have been nice and pretty much not noticable, but it's been bugging me lately that the room is so dark.
So, we decided to brighten it up, move some art around, and make it more "us"... check it out...
Shazam! A more buttery tone for the walls - to compliment our area rug and make our green sofas pop...
I'm really loving that we grouped some of our favorite prints and pieces together to make an "art wall" if you will... we also took a page from one of my work daddies wife's tricks - which is to paint the walls, trim, everything - all in the same color - it does wonders to make that stupid door less noticeable... just kinda blends in now... which is a relief!
The ghost lamp in the corner there was a wedding present from some dear friends, so, I didn't want to part with it, but I felt it needed a bit of character if it was to stay in the room - so, I stenciled some birdie friends on it and voila - character!
The hallway/ entryway - we took the metal candle holder from the deck and hung it up here instead - I'm enjoying it more in this location as it is more scale for the wall inside than the one it was on outside.
A couple pieces that were previously in the room have new purposes now - which I absolutely love... starting with the handmade wedding present cabinet that our dear friend Eric made for us... it always bummed me out that we just sorta put some books and knick knacks on it and called it a day... I have been thinking and thinking about how and where it would be most useful in the house, and the other day, I figured it out...
In the sewing room!
Can I just swoon for a moment about how exactly perfectly my serger thread fits on the top shelf... and how I somehow managed to make all of my creatures at the exact perfect height to fit on the lower shelf? Oh, and here's the best part... Dr. Bologna, one of my kitty boys, has a taste for thread... he loves to de-thread my sewing machine, pull spools off of the shelf and try to eat large amounts of it... etc...
Well, too bad for Dr. B, because I now have a closed section of cabinet to store all the stuff he would like to eat...
Yay! No more worrying if he ate a bobbin!
The other large piece that has a new purpose is our big wrought iron candle holder that my fancy cousin gave us as a wedding present...
I turned it into an outdoor plant holder! It's amazing what a few 59 cent pots and some paint will do to completely change the look of something... here it is in context with the wall...
It's big enough to handle hanging out by itself on that wall!
All in all, I'm pleased with how the mini-makeover turned out - the mission of brightening and adding more art to our room was accomplished - and I found new places and purposes for some of my favorite posessions!
There's just one more thing that remains not complete, but that will be a blog for another day... stay tuned...this decorating obsessive-complusive's job is never done!
Here's what it looked like last week...
See? Big stupid door right in the middle...
The main picture window - also a bit of a challenge, but it's looking much better now that I bit the bullet and ordered custom blinds for it!
...and the hallway/ entryway situation...
The wall colors we chose many years ago - when we first moved in. Since our previous house had big bright bold colors, I thought we should do more muted mature tones... These colors have been nice and pretty much not noticable, but it's been bugging me lately that the room is so dark.
So, we decided to brighten it up, move some art around, and make it more "us"... check it out...
Shazam! A more buttery tone for the walls - to compliment our area rug and make our green sofas pop...
I'm really loving that we grouped some of our favorite prints and pieces together to make an "art wall" if you will... we also took a page from one of my work daddies wife's tricks - which is to paint the walls, trim, everything - all in the same color - it does wonders to make that stupid door less noticeable... just kinda blends in now... which is a relief!
The ghost lamp in the corner there was a wedding present from some dear friends, so, I didn't want to part with it, but I felt it needed a bit of character if it was to stay in the room - so, I stenciled some birdie friends on it and voila - character!
The hallway/ entryway - we took the metal candle holder from the deck and hung it up here instead - I'm enjoying it more in this location as it is more scale for the wall inside than the one it was on outside.
A couple pieces that were previously in the room have new purposes now - which I absolutely love... starting with the handmade wedding present cabinet that our dear friend Eric made for us... it always bummed me out that we just sorta put some books and knick knacks on it and called it a day... I have been thinking and thinking about how and where it would be most useful in the house, and the other day, I figured it out...
In the sewing room!
Can I just swoon for a moment about how exactly perfectly my serger thread fits on the top shelf... and how I somehow managed to make all of my creatures at the exact perfect height to fit on the lower shelf? Oh, and here's the best part... Dr. Bologna, one of my kitty boys, has a taste for thread... he loves to de-thread my sewing machine, pull spools off of the shelf and try to eat large amounts of it... etc...
Well, too bad for Dr. B, because I now have a closed section of cabinet to store all the stuff he would like to eat...
Yay! No more worrying if he ate a bobbin!
The other large piece that has a new purpose is our big wrought iron candle holder that my fancy cousin gave us as a wedding present...
I turned it into an outdoor plant holder! It's amazing what a few 59 cent pots and some paint will do to completely change the look of something... here it is in context with the wall...
It's big enough to handle hanging out by itself on that wall!
All in all, I'm pleased with how the mini-makeover turned out - the mission of brightening and adding more art to our room was accomplished - and I found new places and purposes for some of my favorite posessions!
There's just one more thing that remains not complete, but that will be a blog for another day... stay tuned...this decorating obsessive-complusive's job is never done!
Wow, this is amazing. You took everything you already had and just made everything better. This is real talent. Can you come to my house?
Posted by: Nathalie | April 25, 2009 at 07:44 AM