Living Room Progress!

One of my personal rules to live by is:

You aren't allowed to complain about something if you're not doing anything to change it.

For example: you can't complain about the size of your rear if you don't get up off of it and work out.  (the exception is things you can't change of course, but if you can't change something, you can change how you look at it and stop complaining anyway).

Hubby pointed out to me that Friday's post was a laundry list of complaints about the living room so I figured I should practice what I preach and put my $$ where my mouth is and whatever other cheesy cliche's apply.

So I did.

I've been far too ADD with design ideas lately, so I just need to focus on one room at a time.  I'm putting jewelry organization/display and some other projects on hold and focus on the room that irks me the most: the living room.

2 notable changes were made over the weekend.

#1. Harry Potter's room has a new door!  No, Harry Potter does NOT live with me, however we do have an awkward closet that spans the entire space under the stairs.  We call this Harry Potter's room, or the hall closet, whichever you prefer.  The bi-fold door to this space was the only non-white door in the entire house and was a very awkward orangey wood tone that was not finished well in the first place.  Since the hall is wide open to the living room, I consider them 1 large space.

Pre-primed white doors with paneling similar to the other doors in the house were less than $50 at my friendly local Home Depot, so I was on the ground running.  I'll spare you the enthralling progress shot of painting white primed doors white satin and I'll jump to the after.

As a finishing touch, I picked up a mercury-glass knob from Anthropologie and put up a mirror from HomeGoods to give the space more presence.

You like?  So much better if I do say so myself!

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Weekend Project #2:  New vignette/storage.

I've been hunting for some type of table to put against the stair wall, but am challenged by the narrow space.  While looking at HomeGoods, I fell in love with a small asian style cabinet that was too deep.  After re-measuring the area several times (hoping that somehow the space would multiply- no luck), I decided to bring it home anyway.

It worked as I was hoping next to the chair (which Hubby is all about replacing now, yay!).  I took down the brown curtains (not the hardware yet though) and styled the new cabinet with a new "&" sign, Starry Night (removed from the opposite wall), a few tag-sale books, and Archimedes the owl.

I'm so pleased to see the living room finally start evolving!

Living Room Sparks

Aside from the organizational challenges that come with a small house, my Achilles heel has been the living room. I've been struggling with how to design the space to make it special without replacing all the furniture, which our budget and Hubby would totally let me do (said with dripping sarcasm).  It's your standard small living room.  Nothing architecturally notable.  With pass-throughs to the hall and dining room, there was only 1 way to layout the tv and seating and the furniture, rug and curtains that looked so phenomenal in the apartment look lackluster in the house's living room.

I'm always hesitant to admit this, but I preferred the layout of the living room when we first toured the house to our furniture layout.  The previous owner had more of a collection of smaller scaled pieces and not just your standard couch, chair, coffee table.  Although her pieces weren't my style, the overall composition was effective:

Now I really don't want to show you our current living room, but I will anyway....

It doesn't help that I'm not particularly happy with our living room furniture.  The rug and coffee table were purchased when hubby and I moved in together (and I think both are too visually heavy for this space) and the couch and chair were purchased with wedding gift $.  Ugh, the couch and chair.  Let me just say- in the future, couches will be purchased for style AND construction, NOT style and low price.  In less than a year, the couch back cushions started looking terrible and the fabric started  bubbling.

The chair is not abused as much, so it's in better shape, but its still not ideal.  When we were picking them out, I kept pushing toward a non-matching chair in a different pattern or color than the couch.  Hubby insisted on the matching chair, and I picked my battles.  Now, however he denies that the discussion went down that way, but we all know who's right (eh hem, me).

Ok. Enough complaining and on to the "sparks" part.  Ideas are forming (FINALLY)!

I've been obsessed with this sofa image, and its gotten me thinking about what I love about certain spaces.

I love an eclectic and chic collection of pieces and textures.  I don't want a living room that looks like I went to the furniture store and bought the complete vignette they had on display (which is the vibe I think our current living room is giving off).  As a designer myself, I feel like its the biggest cop-out for me to have a 'collection' that another designer selected to market to the masses.  Don't get me wrong, furniture store collections look nice and I wouldn't hate on you if you had them.  I personally want a distinctive space that you won't find walking into any furniture store or anyone elses house.  I'm a design snob- I admit it.

So here are my plans for our living room so far:

• The curtains gotta go.  I love the look of floor to ceiling curtains, but after giving it the old college try, it's just not effective in here.  We don't need the curtains since we have the plantation shutters, so out they go.
• Textured paint treatment.  In the apartment I had a satin stripe treatment in the same color and it was subtle but chic.  I'll either do a similar satin stripe (at a smaller scale) or do a glossier stripe in 1 shade difference.
• I've resigned to the fact that the sofa's going to stick around for a little while.  I'm going to keep my eye out for chair(s) that I could reupholster, though.
• Artwork or a mirror behind the couch.  I have some DIY thoughts on that, so it'll be a surprise.
• I need to do something with the sad little Starry Night canvas (from a fleamarket for just $10! I did have to fly home from Florida with it as my carry-on though).
• Coffee table.  I'm looking for it's perfect replacement.  When I see it, I'll know.
• Mount the TV on the wall.
• Accessorize & style!

I will conquer this living room beast eventually!!

What do you think of these ideas?  What would you change/do differently?  I'd love your input!

*all images via Pinterest

Daisy-versary

Last week, I neglected to give the proper importance to a major milestone in our lives. 1 year ago last week, as an early anniversary gift to ourselves, Hubby and I adopted our first fur-baby, Daisy.  (Yup, we're nuts.  It's fun this way.)

Hubby had cats growing up, but the closest I ever had to a real pet before Daisy was a dog-next-door.

She picked us.

We called the Baypath Humane Society ahead of time to make sure we could take a cat home that day.  The woman Hubby spoke to asked him a few questions about what we were looking for and she said she had just the cat for us.  When we got there, she took us right to Daisy.  Although Daisy was a little shy at first, when Hubby picked her up, she immediately started purring.  How could we NOT bring home the little ball of fuzz?!

Daisy was just under a year old and had already had a litter of kittens (the feline version of a teen mom).  She still looked like a kitten herself!

It has been so much fun over the past year seeing her personality blossom.  Much like most cats, she's a diva and a princess, and we wouldn't have it any other way.

We waited until we moved into the house to get a sibling kitty for her to play with and the difference in her was monumental!  She started purring more, cuddling more, and was obviously happier.  Having a brother to chase around the house and beat up suits her very nicely.  Although she's a few months younger and almost half his size at 8lbs compared to his 13, she's totally the alpha.

As one of my best friend's so aptly put it: she filled the fuzzy void that we didn't know was missing in our lives.

Ok, that's enough cheese for one day.  Check back Friday for my living room inspiration and ideas.