Stuck

Oh, the living room. My secret nemesis.

Too dramatic? Possibly.

Me and the living room have a love/hate relationship. Because our house is split entry, the staircase comes up the side of the living room, where there is a pony wall.

Attached to the other side of the living room, is the dining room. Neither the living room, or dining room is very large, but they are not tiny either.

My biggest struggle is trying to get the most of our space with out making it feel overwhelmed.

When we first moved in, we tore up the carpet, painted the walls and ceiling and then proceeded to try and make our furniture work with the space. When we bought the majority of our furniture it was for our house in Vegas. The Vegas house, was newly built and had more spacious rooms. Hence, the larger furniture fit in great.

The furniture in this house fit...OK. It worked for what we needed it to, at the time. 

I had disliked these couches for awhile, and had tried numerous times to rearrange the room to see if it could look better a different way.

I had lots of people compliment my room saying that they loved it, for which I was truly grateful. For me, it started to feel a little too busy. I didn't like our couches and I wanted something new. I wanted something that felt uncluttered and clean.

So I did something drastic.

My mom had given me money, as a gift, to buy something that I wanted, that I typically wouldn't buy. The only thing that I knew I wanted was a couch. Obviously couches are more...so...I sold all of our living room furniture. With the exception of my vintage orange chair. Then I used the money to buy my new couch.

We looked around for couches that we liked. I wanted it to have straight lines, be comfortable but not too fluffy, and still be able to sit three people.

We found this leather couch from RC Willey. I was nervous about having a light colored leather couch...but -spoiler-...I loved it, and I still love it.

The couch was in, and the room was definitely simple, but I still didn't love it.

So I did what any none sane person does...I moved around furniture.

Sometimes I would add in a chair,

or try the "divide and conquer", 

I found a coffee table that was in rough shape...so I tried that too.

This layout was the one that I liked the best, so it stuck around.

This cabinet was originally in the kids toy room but I thought I would give it a try in the living room.

I liked that it wasn't too big, and that it seemed to ground that side of the room.

But, I still wasn't completely happy.

I figured since I has changed the furniture, and the decor, and even the style, that it couldn't be any of those things. The only thing left, that I could think of, was the paint.

I love color.

Me and color are besties. 

So, when I proposed that I was going to paint the room white, Blake probably thought I was joking.

I wasn't.

I got the room all ready to paint, and then I just went for it.

What you can't really see in these pictures is that the wall that I painted white is the whole depth of our house. It goes into the dining room.

In the dining room is a large mirror.

Separating the two rooms has always been a little of a challenge for me.

"Where do I hang art, that I want to be in the living room, and not look like it is part of the dining room?" "Will it look weird to have a big mirror, some space, and then some more art?"

My solution? Separate the rooms with a stripe.

Oh how I wish this were the end of the living room saga!

Alas...no.

I felt like the very hungry caterpillar that was still hungry. Something just didn't seem right.

Along the way I traded the wood dresser for a hutch

and I traded the black chair for a white one.

My living room felt dark, and full of wood,

...and maybe even a little old? I don't know.

I needed lighter colors.

I tested colors for the stripe.
Nope. That wasn't going to fix my problem either.
After reading an article it occurred to me that perhaps I just needed to eliminate some colors. Streamline, if you will. I also realized while looking at pictures of other rooms, that I like rooms with lots of white.
So I got rid of the hutch and traded it for another dresser, this time with white. (I may eventually paint all the drawers white, but I haven't committed to that yet.) I also changed the rug, the brown cabinet at the top of the stairs, and I painted over the stripe.

There are lots of plants around. I seem to not be able to stop buying them. Our house is going to look like a jungle soon.

I love having fun things to look at in rooms. I appreciate that special thing that you won't see in other people's houses...
Like metal frogs used to hold photos.

Or a random collection of globes in the corner.

Maybe a little piggy bank that looks like it could be in Toy Story,

or a mask from Mystere and a brass cricket to remind me of our living in Vegas.

Since the room has changed, which I will admit hasn't been a real long time, I have really liked it.
It feels colorful, but not too busy.
Before:

After: 

Quickness of Change

Blake and I were discussing the other day the speed at which I change things. Not because I grow tired of them, but mostly because I find something I like better. Thankfully, Blake doesn't seem to mind that I am constantly moving stuff around.

Nothing major has happened lately on the house, but stuff has changed. Mostly decor. We have gotten all of the downstairs doors up and some of the baseboards...more on that another time.

I figured that a good update was in order.

When we first moved into the house our bedroom was, well,...putting it nicely...leaving something to be desired.

We painted the walls grey, pulled up the carpet, pulled down the curtains and switched out the fan. Then proceeded to move our furniture in.

I need to stress here, that our room is NOT big. If we had a king size bed, it wouldn't fit. We are ok with it. But, our furniture was just too big for our bedroom so we decided that we would use two dressers as night stands and I got new bedding in hopes that it would brighten up the space.

We sold off our side tables and long dresser in lieu of the two dressers.

It felt better with the two dressers and we surprisingly had more storage space (which we desperately need).

Imagine Blake's surprise **insert sarcastic tone** when he came home one day and I told him I wanted to move around the bedroom.

Moving around the bedroom to make everything fit, and still get access to our closet, required me to not have a nightstand. It felt so much better to not have the window blocked, so I was OK with that.

I also decided to paint the wall above our bed instead of hanging art.

I decided to go with a triangle design and I am pretty happy with it.

Our room is still lacking "something" I am just not quite sure what that is yet.

The nice thing is, I am not in a super rush to figure out what IT is.
I am just please that our room doesn't look like a dirty motel anymore.
Before:

After:

I am hoping that now that we have figured out what was wrong with Penny, I can update a little more frequently. There are definitely things that have changed. 

The Rabbit Hole

Are you getting sick of the toy room yet?

Well, if you are, there is good news for you. It is pretty much completed. Not that I won't probably add things in the future...because I most likely will.

That is how I roll.

But, just to get you up to speed...

I bought this "couch" to use in the toy room. It sits low to the ground so I thought it would be good for kids. Problem? Where do I begin. It didn't have a cushion or a cover. I figured it wouldn't be that bad to make one myself. That is the problem with wanting to do something yourself....sometimes it doesn't work out quite how you planned. I figured that I would go to the fabric store, buy some foam, make a cover and we would be set.

Do you have any idea how expensive foam is?! Spendy stuff.

So I did what any normal person would do, and I deconstructed our couch and used the foam.

Ok, so most people don't do that. But I did, and it saved me a fortune.

Then I got to problem number two: No cover.

Thankfully, I am handy with a sewing machine so I wasn't quite so nervous about this part. I was mostly concerned about how expensive the fabric was going to be.

Hancock Fabric here has fairly inexpensive upholstery material so I found some there. I then made a pattern out of paper so that I could get the curve of the couch correct.

It took me about a day to complete the cover. I was pretty happy when it was done, but wished I had made the zipper opening a little larger. Trying to get that cushion in ended up being more hassle then I would have preferred.

Since the back of the couch is wood spindles I opted to make some over sized pillows with some fabric that I found at an estate sale.

I also finished up my hand stitched flower pillow, complete with pom pom fringe. I just couldn't help myself.

I have to tell you a secret. I am having a small love affair with Mid Century Modern furniture. I want to buy it all and fill our house.

But I will tell you something else,...it ain't cheap.

I really wanted a cabinet to put in the kid toy room so that I could put the kids legos in drawers and something to hold the kids books. I had been looking at estate sales and the DI but I hadn't had any luck.

I had this cabinet that I had painted with chalkboard paint, but I didn't really love it.

I actually hardly liked it, but it worked.

It is hard to argue with something that serves a purpose, when you don't have anything to replace it with.

Sometimes patience pays off. 

And sometimes it pays off in the form of a $25 dollar dresser.

Funny side story: We bought the dresser for $25 from an estate sale. I couldn't have been more pleased. It came with a mirror that matched it. Because the dresser is right underneath a window I had no purpose for the mirror...so I sold it...for $30. Then, because I had no use for the black cupboard, I sold that for $20. I am going to call this dresser a win.

Especially since this is the same dresser! Crazy!!

With the new dresser, the couch got repositioned to a different wall. I much prefer it to the older set up.

Blake put up some baseboards right before company came for Thanksgiving. It is impressive how much nicer a room looks with baseboards.

Ya'll ready for this?

Finished!

...well...for now anyways...