Redecorating my Living room: Finishing the new Space

Now that I have the TV relocated and all of the patching and touching up done I can finally move on to redecorating our living room. I didn’t mention them in my last post (because it was already too long…) but I have a rocking chair issue. Currently I have three of them that are suddenly in the way. Of course I love all of them… However, one thing is for certain, our living room cannot house one of them anymore and our guest bedroom, as soon as it transforms fully into Lodi’s den, won’t have the space either.

During our living room rearranging two rocking chairs ended up entirely in our way in the entry way. Fortunately, the black one fit fine upstairs in the master, but the other two are in our garage at the moment.

(Its so silly but that black rocker is the best rocker we own and the only reason I brought it home was because it was only $5! Meanwhile the other rockers have all kinds of sentimental value as two came from my Grandparents on my dad’s side and the other came from my aunt on my mom’s side… and they’re all really uncomfortable!)

I’m hoping one of them will fit down in our basement when we turn that into a guest suite…

In the meantime… Neither Lodi or I could bare to bring anything else back into our living room.

It is just so amazing, huge and spacious now!

What did we veto? The blanket ladder that was in the back corner, a rocking chair and the entertainment center and that really is a lot so it is no wonder this space feels so much better!

We did bring the corner cabinet in but it really feels like it takes no space at all.

I went ahead and also took down all of the artwork too.

I wanted to start with a clean slate and that’s right where we left off at the end of the last post with also a top to bottom sparkly clean room.

(Note… the loss of our old dog this last winter I really think is why I wanted a new start here. Annie spent the last of her days slipping away in this room and, as so often is the case, there was a lot of clean up before we could send her home. I wanted those memories out of here ASAP. Annie would have wanted to be remembered running, not having to be cleaned up after like a bad dog when she was a very good dog.)

I’m also pretty sure we hadn’t vacuumed behind the couch since we moved it there five years ago…

First thing I did was move the rug all the way, under the sofa, to the back of the room.

Initially I was going to get a smaller rug for in here because this one is huge but now I think it works. It covers our “back hall” and its practical too for if we drag in dirt or snow from outside.

I nixed the curtains that were on the doors because they were ancient and we never used them so they were just dust collectors.

On the walls is a big change.

Where the tv is now I had a shelf above a hanging rack for a quilt my great grandmother made. It was gorgeous in this room for a long time but it was time to do something different. (I tucked the quilt safely away.)

The prints are originals that we purchased from my uncle last summer and I think they’re stunning in this room.

Doesn’t the wall color just set them off?

This was always a dark room.

The French doors face a forest to the East and the stained glass window faces into another room. The lack of natural light in this space was what drove me to painting it such a cheery color that I never would have picked otherwise. (Rise and Shine by Clark and Kensington)

I had put up two big mirrors I had made out of old windows on the back wall beside the stained glass window, which reflected our north facing kitchen windows into the room which had made a huge difference. (I’d been prepared to keep them here.)

But that was when the sofa had been on that wall too and before we had a bright rug for the floor not to mention the artwork is anything but dark.

And, of course, the fact that the room itself no longer feels long and narrow helps a lot too!

I don’t think we’re ever going to go back from this setup after this.

Our sofa is getting pretty tired but Lodi already said, “I don’t care what we replace it with it HAS to go right here – just like this. This is insane. Its not the same room. This is so much better!”

And I totally agree with him!

The room became wider by tucking the sofa between the chimney and the staircase and the room became shorter by cutting it off with the sofa.

What once kind of felt like a glorified hallway now feels like a full fledged family room.

I really like that privacy “hall” this setup made behind the couch too.

Our master bedroom is the only thing that resides on the second floor so having it so open to the highest traffic area of the house was just weird.

In the summers, when we leave the French doors open, one of them will literally “close” like a door on our stairwell and they’ll still be just as easy to use as they ever were to access our deck.

Speaking of our deck… I can no longer really sit and watch our birds and critters that we feed (a huge bummer for me) but this space is so much better that its worth it.

When I took the quilt down it came down with a shelf and all of the things that were on it. I also took everything off of the corner cabinet and purged a lot from there as well.

So I had a large box of stuff with no home.

And bringing the shelf back felt like intentionally adding heavy clutter.

When I had initially built our sofa table charging station I had used it for books and things but I was constantly bumping all of it so that wasn’t an option.

Hover here to see the sofa table!

I sat on it for weeks and then, one evening for no explicable reason, it just dawned on me. Above the staircase to our second floor there is in an interesting, empty, space.

When I cut out the opening to create a larger stairwell I added 6×6 beams to support the second floor and that created what turned out to be the perfect book shelf.

I’ve been the co-editor and print designer for the non profit publishing company the Jackpine Writers’ bloc since 2003. In that time, and also designing books independently for individual authors, I’ve designed over 40 books over the years. Sadly, this isn’t all of them, but this is most of them and you can see there’s room for more.

(This spurred me on to get a copy of every book I’ve ever designed and I’m currently in the process of getting all of them!)

I’m totally fine with them not being out on obvious display, its like this spot was made for them and I think they look great here.

It actually feels like the space could use more additions. Maybe something hung above the books?

One of the old windows I made into a mirror headed for the basement stairwell I’ve been working on and you can see the other fit nicely above our buffet here doing its old job of reflecting light.

The only thing without a real home now is the print by John Banovich called “Great White” that my mom purchased for me many years ago.

Its a gorgeous piece of a rhinoceros that will always be with me but I’m thinking it will be heading for our guest suite in the basement once we complete that later this year. That basement could certainly use some “outdoor” feelings and that big print will do a good job of that down there.

As far as “bang for your buck” goes, this might be my most remarkable transformation and I spent less than $100!

New TV mount $30
Silk Sunflowers $20
Sunflower pillows (set of 6) $40