Meet the Living Room

You met the outside of our first home here last week.  Now come inside it's fun inside(couldn't help myself..the kid's are watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse as I type).  Here is the view of the front door from the living room.  Here's what we got rid of: screen door, half wall dividing the dining, vertical blinds, peel and stick "wood look" flooring, you can't see much of it but the thin non insulated door that went into the garage there to the left of the breakfast area, brass chandelier and every bit of trim and door in the house was replaced.  See that entry to the hall there on the right?  We decided to round that off and add more interest(see pic below for in progress shot..not sure if we would do that again but that is where we were in our design style in 2003).  Oh and we scraped the popcorn ceilings throughout the whole house, sanded every wall with a belt sander because they had a prickly texture(I am now not a big fan of the belt sander..that was rough!), and you see that back wall in the breakfast nook?  That was a faux brick pattern made out of joint compound.  Its was about an inch thick..I sure wish I could find the pictures of me sanding that off. The air was so thick with dust we couldn't see each other and mid sanding we ended up bubbling off the area..Live and learn through home reno for sure!

Below is what you first saw when you walked into the house.  Hubby built a new mantle one day while I was at work(better than flowers!), we of course got rid of the vertical blinds, we also scraped every window in the house because they had a film of something all over, replaced the sliding door with double french doors that both opened out towards the one day to be deck(does every girl love the thought of pushing open double doors to her veranda..or is it just me?), replaced the the fan, painted the beam white to make the room more airy.  I scrubbed most of the smoke stains around the fireplace off with a wire brush, removed the rusty fireplace screen and painted the inside of the fireplace with an appropriate heat and fireproof  paint.   Those are the same peel and stick vinyl "wood look" planks mentioned in the bath reno that were of course replaced with the tile that we put everywhere except the bedrooms.

So here is how it all eventually looked. There was a time in between these before and afters where we had a dinky tv cabinet, and none of this furniture.  See that large armoire for the t.v?  I am a lucky woman...hubby built that too.  We saw one at a large furniture store..took a picture and he eventually whipped one up that fit our space.   All the trim in the house was done with MDF boards that we ripped down to size and routed the top edge of. Otherwise there was no way a tallish baseboard was going to be in the budget.

Here is the armoire almost done..I wasn't so good at taking In Progress pics..or I have lost them(it's a little bit of both I'm sure)

Here is the other side:from standing near the breakfast nook.

The view from the front door.  That's the master bedroom to the left of the credenza.  

Just another shot of the same area.  I had apparently changed up the stuff on the credenza a bit at this point.  

If you look at the pictures below you see how much the room progressed over time.  I tried to go with a yellow color(shown below..yellow is tough for me to figure out) but felt like we were going to get a sunburn just walking into the room. Then I  tried a faux finish look that was just all wrong.  Eventually we landed on a paint color called "winter wheat" but I can't remember the brand..I can say that it was from home depot though:) (that was our home away from home) A lot of this look is thanks to new furniture and just collecting some fun stuff to decorate with.

Isn't it amazing what some paint and new furniture can do for the feel of a home?  We bought that little chair for $5 when we were first dating(probably our very first project together) and I am embarrassed to say we first covered it in fuzzy leopard print(I mean the super fuzzy classy stuff..that was a long time ago friends) and then this lovely little faux leather number.  It now resides in storage because we just can't let it go;)

So there it is! We loved this warm and cozy room!

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