Living room: Reveal-ish

Okay people. Here's the thing. I am all over the place lately, like literally everywhere and I can't seem to complete one full project before we get crazy busy doing something else. The thing is, we are getting ready to head out on vacation and I didn't want to leave without showing you all the progress we've made in the living room. The problem? We didn't do anything to the fireplace yet. I know, I know, I should probably just wait until its ALL complete before I call it a reveal but that's why I'm calling it a reveal-ish. Get it? Okay cool, glad you're on board. Now on to the reveal-ish... If you remember, all we were doing to this space was the fireplace, the rug and adding a chair right? Well, like I said, the fireplace didn't get done, but we did get the chair and the rug in! Of course once you change one thing it seems like five more things have to change to get that vision you really want right? Only me? Hope not. Well that kinda happened in this space. Before we get to all that lets take a look at the befores, here is what it looked like when we first got the keys:

After we moved our furniture in:

and after we added the sofa table, which is where we left off in the last post about the living room:

I had planned arrange the furniture like this and call it good, but once everything was in place it felt so weird and unbalanced. It didn't look right at all.

the right side is completely bare while the left side is full

So, I moved the bookcase to the right side of the fireplace, the floor lamp to the right of the chair and added a cute garden stool [from At Home $34.99] on the left with some framed art to really complete the look. Alas it felt the way I wanted it to from the beginning. Here it is now, mostly complete.

so much more balanced! And with a wider, floor to ceiling fireplace, it will look even better

 

so that's what we are living with [and totally loving] right now. Thanks for sticking with me through all my all-over-the-place-ness, I promise I will get done with the fireplace, eventually. Maybe.

---Jackie

Living Room Progress: What I Ordered

We haven't gotten around to working on the fireplace yet, but I have it all drawn out with measurements and everything so we should be able to get building on that soon, however, we did make some progress since I got all the furniture ordered. I wanted another cowhide rug and was concerned that we would have to buy a real one to get the size we needed, which made me super sad since I love cows, but nope! I actually found a large FAUX cowhide! Woohoo! Check it out...

Ain't she a beaut? I originally planned to purchase it from Overstock but then Rugsusa was having a sale and this one cost me $162 total! Free shipping, no tax whereas the other was $163 plus tax and free shipping and looked more fake.

Next, I wanted this exact chair that I originally found at American Furniture Warehouse for $198,

but when I started searching around online I found that Amazon had the exact same one for $187. It may not seem like a huge difference but with AFW I have to pay tax, plus a $79 delivery charge, with Amazon, I just had to pay tax and got free shipping! In total I spent $201.80 on the chair, score!

These pieces should arrive in the next week or so and hopefully we can get moving on the fireplace by then! Here's to hoping!

--Jackie

Living Room-The Plan

We have our hands in a couple projects right now, manly the garage but I'm also trying to figure out the living room. Remember a while back when I said I wasn't in love with the living room rug? Well, I'm not. I decided that I wanted to throw a huge cow hide in here [it'll have to be a real one this time because the DIY ones are too small for the space]. Once I decided on the rug it seemed like other things needed to change too to give the living room the feel that upstairs living room and guest room have, that darker more rustic vibe. Basically, I'd like to add a leather chair, build a new fireplace and plank it to the ceiling and move the bookcase to another wall, not too much. To get a visual I changed up my mood board...

but even so, I couldn't really picture how exactly the space was going to come together so I hopped on my laptop last night and searched for a free room design program. I found one and created a quick design and took some pictures of it to show you [and me] what I'm envisioning....

I have to say, its so nice to see how it will actually look all together in the space. It definitely solidified for me that I want to make these changes, so now I'm on the lookout for a bargain cow hide and leather chair, then we'll have to rebuild the fireplace so hopefully in the next month or so we'll be back with a few minor changes a whole new look!

-Jackie