Living Room

3 posts in 3 days! I'm so excited because we made a lot of progress on the living room this month. Well, I did most of the hard stuff right when we moved in but we finally got to order our new couches and big rug. The room is finished now (except for a few wires that need to be hidden in the wall). I love sitting in here. I'm so thankful for this space.

Before:

After:

 If you're interested in our fireplace redo read my previous post here:

http://katiehedge.blogspot.com/2014/01/fireplace-makeover.html

One of the first things I started doing right when we moved in was paint. The sooner I got that done the sooner I could start hanging things on walls and putting things where they went. We did have some painters come over to help for a few days which was so nice. They mostly worked on trim though. The whole house was freshly painted before being put on the market but they painted latex paint on top of enamel and once we got our furniture in it was chipped all to pieces. You could easily peel off a foot of paint at a time. Terrible. So we had to paint enamel over ALL of it. Downstairs they didn't paint all of the woodwork. Not sure why. The painters painted all of the downstairs windows and doors. I love the way it lightened everything up. Our moms came over one Sunday afternoon and helped us paint this room. It was the first one we did. We chose Sea Salt by Sherwin Williams. We love this color. Such a subtle and soothing blue. It's in our bedroom as well. 

I whitewashed the brick and spray painted the fireplace surround and tools (see blog post link above). The bookshelves look so different white. I also replaced the hardware on the doors. 

We found a great deal on the couches at Ashley furniture. They're the Ballari linen sofa and loveseat. We got about $100 off of each one. I saw them for the first time on President's Day when they were having a 20% off sale. I bought them like 3 weeks later but told them that I was originally quoted the 20% off price on President's Day. Without hesitation they were totally cool with giving me that price again even though the promotion had expired. Always ask!!

I got the patterned pillows at TJ Maxx and the blue button and yellow ones at Home Goods (such a dangerous place when you have a new house).

The ivory shag rug I found on Amazon. It's a 9x12. It was a great price. I searched for months looking for a rug that size for less than $400. We definitely wanted to get it before our baby comes so we can play with him/her on the floor. The room is so much cozier now.

I got these curtains for Christmas. I love them. They're beige with embroidered white polka dots. They came from lightinthebox.com. Use a coupon code! I got to customize the hanging-style as well as the length. Pretty sure they're made to order. I'd definitely buy from there again. I spent weeks searching for the perfect window treatment for this room. I was originally looking for fabric to make my own. Somehow I came across these and they were just what I was looking for and they didn't break the budget at all. It would've been way more expensive to buy the fabric for 4 panels. 

I needed a little chair for the desk in our bookshelves. I went shopping in my dad's garage per usual and I found a plethora of these wooden chairs. They were my aunt's but she so generously donated one to my cause. I polished the wood and replaced the fabric with ikat fabric from Premier Fabrics that coordinated with my curtains.

I was really intimidated at first by these bookshelves. I've never had bookshelves before. I was so drawn to them when we found this house but when it was time to decorate them I didn't know where to start. There were so many shelves. I stared at them for a few days not knowing what to do. I finally just started puttin and changin and they finally ended up how they are now. I had most of the components but I purchased some (mostly from Michaels, Hobby Lobby, TJ Maxx, and Ross) and I changed some of the things I already had. The bottom right shelf still has our cable wire coming out of it. Once we get all of that taken care of I can hang the things in it. 

I got most of my books at Goodwill. They had a cool collection of old classics that weren't expensive at all. I really like how all of them are really different.

Here's an example of something I changed. This was gold, red and black. I was first going to get rid of it but then I decided to try and make it work first. I spray painted it and used sandpaper to rough it up. 

I love this painting by Lisa Sulipeck. She gave it to us as a wedding gifts. Definitely one of my favorite things we received. 

We got this entertainment center right when we got married. Matt was ready to get rid of my bulky TV and get a flat screen. I was behind on the times. My big TV was in an old wardrobe so we had to get a new piece of furniture. We found this online somewhere and Matt put it together. I don't like seeing through the glass. In our old house I had scrapbook paper behind it. I wanted to change things up this time so I put white burlap behind the glass to camouflage the equipment. 

I make these signs and sell them. I had to redo ours to match the new house as well. They make great wedding and Christmas gifts ;)

www.KatieCave.com

This frame was black with a pure white mat. It was plastic and looked pretty cheap (probably because it was). I spray painted it and sanded the edges and rematted it with white burlap and cardboard-colored scrapbook paper. 

In our old house we had a long hallway that I called my hallway-o-pictures. I had so many you couldn't even see the wall. I didn't want to go that crazy again but I wanted to have a wall-o-photos somewhere. The bar wall was the perfect place. I already had all of these frames. They were all so different. I spray painted them all white and sanded them. I also spray painted the mats off white of the picture frames that had them. They were off white before but they weren't the same shade and it was buggin me. Now they're uniform but still different and interesting. One thing that I saw on Pinterest that was SUPER helpful was a way to hang galleries. Cut out paper to the size of each frame, lay it out how you want it, then tape it on the wall. That way you can get everything perfectly centered without the hassel of making unnecessary holes in your walls. Wall collages are hard to hang. This made it so easy.

Here's a random picture of my dog because she's cute.

This room has undergone the most dramatic change. The entry way is a close second though. 

http://katiehedge.blogspot.com/2014/04/entry-hallway-matts-officemusic-room.html

We're so thankful for all of the help we've had on these projects. We couldn't do it by ourselves. Soon we'll be finished with our kitchen and bedroom. Can't wait to share them with you!

2016 UPDATE:

http://katiehedge.blogspot.com/2016/01/house-update-2016.html