living room makeover

I think that I’ve mentioned before that we live in an old house…100 years old, to be exact.  Yes, our house was built in 1918 and we’ve lived in it for almost 10 years.

Right after the holidays (as the “dead” of winter was setting in), I became restless and suggested to my husband that we look for another home.  Of course, he wanted nothing to do with that!

So we started to discuss what we could do to our current home to make it function better.  As you may remember, I PAINTED AND ORGANIZED OUR FOYER.  That was a big undertaking!  But the fresh paint lightened up the space so much!  I also MADE SOME CHANGES IN OUR KITCHEN, which gave it a different feel altogether.

However, the biggest change came in our living room!  We’ve always loved spending time in this room…it is spacious, there is a lot of natural light, and it just feels cozy.

Unfortunately, I could only find one BEFORE picture of the room…

There was one thing missing, though.  Both of our previous homes had built-in shelves on either side of our fireplace.  This house does not, and the configuration of the room did not allow this.

Until now…

While it didn’t make sense to build shelves and cabinets surrounding the fireplace (those double doors are certainly in the way), it did make sense to build them on the back wall of the room.  You can’t see that part of the room in the picture, but there is a window which looks out to our backyard.  There is also a radiator under the window.  I could totally envision this space with shelving and cabinets AND a window seat…you know how I love window seats!

While I didn’t do the actual constructing of the shelves, cabinets, and window seat (we hired that part done), I did have a lot of say in the design of it.

Once the construction was finished, I painted (surprise, I think I’ve now painted almost our entire first floor) the entire room.  While I loved the dark blue walls, I thought it was time for a change.  I lightened up the space by painting the walls Cottage White by Behr Paint.  I decided to go with a neutral color palette in the room…tans, whites, creams, and blacks.  So I switched out a few accessory pieces (rugs and pillows), and I had the chair/ ottoman reupholstered…it was in serious need of new fabric, anyway.

Okay, enough said!  Here is our living room makeover…

I love so much about this room…it really has become my favorite space in our house!

Thanks for reading and let me know in the comments if you have any questions.