The Living Room

This room started in 2008 as a holder of all things Great Uncle Henry. He passed away Christmas 2007, Tim and his twin moved in June 2008. With the Estate not being finished they moved all his stuff to the (what is now) the living room. This room held two huge executive desks, a full size pool table, totes full of clothes, quilts, and other crazy miscellaneous Great Uncle Henry stuff. The walls were wallpapered, of course. The one wall had a wallpaper mural and the rest of room had a border of wildlife. The bottom of the room was painted dark green and the top white-ish and by "ish" I mean from far away it looked white but up close it was a green/white. The ceiling is thought to be the original wood ceiling so no matter what I do to this room I am NOT allowed to paint the ceiling, which I am fine with because for once it is not an orange tone. 

After we got engaged in 2011 Tim moved all of Great Uncle Henry's stuff out of the house and he and I started taking off the wallpaper. If we are counting, this was probably the third through tenth time I cussed out Great Uncle Henry for his excessive use of wallpaper glue and putting up a mural that literally didn't want to come down. This time we had a steamer and it still did not want to budge. Once we finally got all the wallpaper down it was time for paint. Once again, this was happening while I was planning a wedding so I did not care what the paint colors were. In hindsight maybe I should have cared. Tim picked burnt orange on the wall that the mural was on and tan (or what I called baby poop) on the other three walls. This didn't make the room look any bigger, actually made it darker, but I already gave him the green light on what ever colors he wanted. I should have learned my lesson from the dining room color choice. This room was now designated to be our living room, it is a perfect 16' x 17' with 4 windows and a front door. The opening into this room is divided by french doors that are original to the house (so the family thinks) and there is a door leads into the mud/utility room.

The Living Room before.

January of 2019 I could not take the darkness anymore. I moved all furniture out of the room grabbed the extra can of Change of Rain paint I had laying around and started painting, obviously I didn't have enough and ended up running to Ace Hardware for more. It didn't take but two coats of gray and to paint the trim and doors white to brighten up this room. We moved the TV to a totally unexpected wall and moved the whole room around. I got rid of every piece of furniture except the couches and my quilt ladder. I didn't want places for people to hide crap, because my family are crap hiders and hoarders (they definitely get it from their father). I was looking for a specific TV cabinet, when I showed my sister-in-law, whom is an interior designer by trade, the one I was going to purchase she told me not to buy it if I could hold out a couple weeks, that I could have hers. WHAT?!?! Sold! It was the identical one I was going to purchase. Hers needed needed a little love, which I never mind doing.

The TV Cabinet and our very small TV.

Our family TV was a 30" (it was mine before marriage) and our already big living room made it look like a 10". I have bad eyes and complained since moving into this house about the television and that I could't read anything on it so for Tim's Birthday I got him a 55" Fire Stick TV, from Amazon .  Now it looks like we are in a movie theater compared to what we had.

Have you priced curtains? I literally have to take a home loan out just to put window coverings in each room. This particular room has four 32"x 68" windows and from ceiling to floor is 112". I didn't want to just do curtains, I wanted a blinds as well and I wanted something that would block the light. The sun shines in this room most the day and puts weird glares in random parts of the room. I had roman shades there before, but they weren't light blocking, and in the six years they hung in the windows they started to disintegrate where they hung. I decided to just make the faux roman shades, like I did in the kitchen.

I couldn't find the color and texture material at a material store, or one that was in my price range anyway, so I looked in the curtain panel isle at Walmart and I found exactly what I was looking for. One panel would make two blinds and I needed four. The blinds cost me a total of $25 and some sewing labor. I plan on fashioning the pieces together and making a blind for the window that is on the door, I just haven't gotten there yet. My next step was to add ceiling to floor curtains to the windows, I wanted white to brighten the room, however I needed 112" and could only find 108". Again, I didn't want to pay an arm and a leg when I landed on these reasonable all white panels at Target. They don't quit hit the ceiling due but they are close enough. 

Since I got rid of the little, very outdated, brass lamps I needed something to use when we didn't want to use the big lights so I found the perfect pendant lamp from Target. The living room was coming together, except my couches are forest green.

Said less than appealing color couches, well love seat anyway, but darn are they comfy.

Now, there is plan in the future to purchase new couches however, for now we will make due. I am living in a house of all boys (ages: 36, 13, 6 and 4) I can't trust them to abide by the "no eating or drinking in the living room" rule, especially when I am not home and let's not talk about the dirt boys track around with them. I searched for reasonable couch covers, I settled on the couch and love seat cover from Amazon.

Now they are dark gray BUT they no longer recline. 

They are super soft however the wrong ones for our couch. I made them work for the time being. The biggest thing is I no longer have to look at the green couches. The last piece I was searching for was the perfect glass cabinet to store our old quilts. After a lot of searching I finally found one at Target. It fit the old quilts and a baby blankets perfectly and I love the pops of colors that come from the cabinet.

There is a quilt in here made by Tim's Great Great Grandma,
baby quilts that were mine made by family, Tim's baby quilt
made by his family and now the three boys each have baby
quilts in the cabinet made by our family. The yellow blanket
is a blue jean quilt that Tim personally made me for our wedding.

There are a few odd and end things I need to do in the living room, like put a molding at the top of the walls, I am asking the husband to build four picture ledge shelves and I have to brainstorms the transoms that are above five of the downstairs doors, two of which are in the living room. I still have no clue what I am going to do on the huge blank wall but I have so many ideas. 

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