Living Room

We're about to get into the rooms where we did major remodeling, but first I wanted to show you the living room.  We just did basic cosmetic updates in this room, but I still think they made a big difference.

The room when we bought the house:

Try to ignore the sneak peek of the kitchen :)

The carpet was in decent condition.  All the wood trim was outdated.  The drapes were pretty awesome.  All the old furniture was a bit distracting.  Also, doesn't that seem like a horrible place for a couch?  You had to walk around the couch to go from the kitchen (on the right) to the hallway (on the left) leading to the bathroom and bedrooms.

We didn't do much to this room right away.  In fact, here are some pictures of our second Christmas in the house:

My sister Kristi, me (pregnant with Nolan), and my sister-in-law Bree.  Note that the walls, carpet, and wood trim are identical to when we bought the house.

That's my mom playing Santa and my nephew opening gifts.  The super stylish couch in the background was given to us by one of our former high school teachers.

Note the awesome drapes still hanging behind the Christmas tree.

When my dad made our huge custom bookshelf, his one condition was that we had to stain it ourselves.  No problem.  I set it up on a drop cloth in the living room and got to work.  Unfortunately, I knocked over the can of stain, and it spilled directly over the only tear in the drop cloth.  The dark brown stain got on the carpet.

We decided not to throw away the carpet that was in good condition.  We cut it into two pieces, cutting out the stained portion between the two large pieces.  We rolled it up, carried it downstairs, and set it up where the couch, toys, and projector are.  You can see it here.

We painted the walls a light bluish gray, painted the window frame a creamy off-white, took down the old drapes, put up ivory blinds, installed light wood laminate flooring, and installed new baseboards that match the floor.

I could only find one picture of the living room at this stage.  We bought the rug and chair (there is a second matching chair not in the picture) at Ikea.  I found a natural-colored slipcover for the hand-me-down floral couch.  The big coffee table in the corner eventually got moved to the family room (more on that later).  That's my niece Layla pretending to talk on my old cell phone while sitting with Nolan.

We eventually moved the slipcovered couch to the basement.  We also moved that rug to the basement laundry area and replaced it with a gray and white floral rug from Ikea.  We added an ivory love seat (Ikea again), gray curtains from Target, pillows from Ikea and some that I recovered, and two lamps.  We also bought a display cabinet to hold treasures from my grandparents who passed away.

Here's how it looks now:

This is the bookshelf my dad made (and I stained...thus ruining the carpet).  My sister made us the picture frame with photos she took that spell our last name.

We just have three rooms left to go:  kitchen, bathroom, and family room.  They're the most dramatic!

Jessica