Our Living Room - Before and After

Once upon a time our living room looked like this. 

Once upon a time being before we purchased it. 

Here is another look at how the previous owners decked out the living room:

The day we got the keys to the house we tore up that carpet and a few months later this is what the living room looked liked:

And the other angle

(Sorry, don't know why the quality is so bad on this one!) 

We bought the floors from Lumber Liquidators and Paul lay the hardwood floors himself and can I just say I am SO proud of him for figuring it out and doing it all himself?!?! 

When I saw Sarah was offering consultations I immediately signed up for it and (eventually got around to!) sending her an email with pictures and some ideas we had. 

We didn't really have a clue what we were doing and Sarah's suggestions were so helpful in giving us a direction! I'm not sure if her style has changed but it was so perfect for us - a numbered list of ideas for where things could go in the room, pieces we could add and ideas for decorating. I got her rates at a steal of $10 a consult and they've since gone up to $40 - still a great deal if you're looking for some personal insight for your decorating needs!

Our room is still not totally finished but it is close enough that I am ready to share pictures! 

This is  our room now and here it is from the other direction:

As you can see from the picture the couches are so new the tags haven't been cut off yet! 

We purchased the couches from a local store but they are Ashley brand couches. 

The cushions are a tad wrinkled as moments before this picture was taken two little boys were cuddling on it :) The cushions are all reversible - LOVE that! But our absolute favorite part about the couches is the back of them: 

We  knew we'd be floating at least one of them in the middle of the room and wanted to be sure the back of the couch was attractive to look at. We looked at TONS of couches - it is quite rare for a couch to be attractive from the back! 

We opted to go with two love seats instead of the traditional love seat and sofa. We haven't regretted the decision at all.

We picked out the curtains from Tuesday Morning. I will eventually get a thicker curtain rod as the current one is somewhat dwarfed by the curtains, but that is a down the road project.

I picked up these shelves at a yard sale last year for $10 each. They were the most horrid salmon color, but with built in lights I saw the potential and bought them both. We are avid game players and decided to display some of our games on these shelves.

This side table was $1 at a yard sale. It was brown so I painted it a couple shades darker than our walls, which doesn't really show up in the pictures. The drawers were broken and I have been putting off fixing them. We plan on adding more black framed photographs to this wall.

The final piece to our room is this beautiful piano we picked up at a yard sale last summer.  It fits perfectly in this space!

It's hard to believe that these two rooms were the same space!!

Interested in GREEN SMOOTHIES? Check out part 1 and part 2 in my series of Why We Eat 3 Green Smoothies a Day.

Making the Best of Renovations

This is our dining room. It has looked like that almost since we moved in.

The day we signed for the house my brother and I ripped the carpet up.

And then it sat there, bare floored, while Paul and I debated which hardwood to purchase.

We finally decided. Or, more accurately, Paul decided. I didn't care so long as it looked pretty. It is hand scraped-something-or-other. Seriously. We spent tons of money on wood and I don't even know what it is! Oh wait. I just called the man at work. It is birch. I could just hear him rolling his eyes when I asked the question. I've asked it a million times now!

Anyways. So we decided on the wood and ordered it.
And then we waited for it.
And waited some more.
We bought our wood from Lumber Liquidators and while they have great quality and excellent prices their customer service STINKS.

But the wood finally came and our contractor got to work putting the floor in:


He (with much help from his daddy!!) put in the entire hardwood floor - just the two of them! I'm so proud of them.

But the dining room is STILL not completed. Paul said it will be ready sometime this week for us to officially move into our dining room, though even then there will be some things left to do in there. But I am SO excited about using our dining room AT LAST!

We have been eating all of our meals on our enclosed back porch. Paul dragged our heavy table out there and we've enjoyed sitting out there and looking at all the beautiful greenery that surrounds us in the back yard.



It is peaceful and relaxing on the back porch, and we have all enjoyed eating our meals out there for the past few months. But we're ready to reclaim the back porch for our patio furniture and to get a dining room all set up!
If all goes as planned I'll have pictures of the new floor up this week!