COLOR! (in the living room)

First of all, Happy Valentine�s Day my SQUEEZIES! :) Hope you had a great one.

I�ve been working on some changes in our living room over the last couple of weeks, and I�m nowhere near close to done, but I just couldn�t wait to show you! I am LOVING how it's turning out -- so excited.

I don�t know if it�s the three inches of ice that have finally melted off our driveway (for the first time in two weeks), or the warmer temps we�re getting this week that is giving us hope for spring, or maybe it�s because the cat peed on the drapes�any one of them could be the reason for my spur-of-the-moment decision to make some changes to our front room.

What�s that? Hmmmm? Oh yeah�I skipped over the pee cat thing. She was off her meds for two long and the inevitable happened. This time though�I�m GLAD. Because that�s actually what started this ball rolling. See � pee cats are good for something! (And she�s really sweet and loving and yada yada�)

Anyhoo, enough mentions of pee for one post. Onward! It started when I took a drape down to wash it, and it just spiraled out of control from there.

For the past year or so, I�ve been trying to add more color to our living room. It looked like this back in the day:

OK, well there�s been color � it�s just been one color. Red. :)

And then I made a few more changes and it looked like this for quite some time:

Notice the trend? DARK. A ton of dark peices and accessories, and red fabrics � ONLY red. You see, for the longest time I thought our wall color was hard to work with. It�s called Beechwood Grey from Porter, and I like it � but for a long time I just felt like I needed to match it, you know?

So red was the direction I went�and I liked it for a while. But my style�it is a changin�.  :)

And taking that one drape down kind of got my wheels turning. I noticed how much brighter it got in the room with just the one panel down. So I took another down�and another�and you get the picture.

The front of our house doesn�t get direct sunlight, but you wouldn�t have been able to tell � the room was positively glowing. And I was in luuurve.

That�s what started the ball started rolling � and the wheels in my head churning. First up was to trim out the windows like I showed you here. I�ve slowly but surely done this around the house, and I�m about half way through the windows now.

And then, since I was going to paint the sills and everything around the window, I went ahead and recaulked both of them:

I didn�t even keep it clean and pretty, because I knew I was painting over it all in white.

And that I did � the new trim and drywall around the windows was painted out in glossy white. See how this started with a little bitty thing and got HUGE? :)

Then another idea came to mind. I love love LOVE my free sewing cabinet and Ballard-esque cafe shelves between the windows, but they have seemed so HEAVY to me lately:

(The iron snowflakes hanging in the windows that I tried to convince myself didn�t look like snowflakes have been gone for a while. They are now packed away in the Christmas decor. Cause they are snowflakes.)

Anyway�I�ve always felt like I needed something more substantial between those windows.

So I took it all away:

(I had just wiped down the wall � hence the dark marks.)

I contemplated leaving those windows nekked by the way, just like in our kitchen. I was smitten, I tell you. 

But then�then, I found THIS:

I was perusing Calico Corners last week (I hadn�t been to the fabric store in forEVER), saw this and couldn�t get it out of my head. It had COLOR � so many beautiful colors. And I just thought the print was stunning.

I couldn�t resist it. And I�m so glad I didn�t. Cause now that dark room looks like this:

Now, I�m showing you in between pics here � keep that in mind. I like to show the process of things so I really wanted to show you the progress thus far.

I think it�s a dramatic change, yes?:

That dresser has made the rounds around our house. It was the Bub�s changing table forever, then it moved to the office, and then it was in the basement for a while.

I made hubs drag it up the stairs to see if it would work and I fell. in. love.

Do you see how differently the wall color photographs? It drives me a little batty. It�s looking way pink in these pics, when it really has more of a greyish tint like in the nekked window picture above.

I�ve mentioned before that we don�t use this as a formal living room � we use it constantly. So the dresser is going to be fantastic storage for puzzles and other activities we do out there:

I have a Goodwill lamp that�s almost ready for the left up on top there. The beautiful wood crate? HomeGoods baby! (For $16!) Doesn�t it looked like I plucked it out of an antique store? LOVE that color too.

One of the things I�d love to do, especially now, is to get a slipcover made for the chair and sofa:

But even without covers, I love them SO MUCH MORE in this room now. It�s just crazy � I don�t know why, but they don�t bother me nearly as much. (But I AM going to slipcover. Oh yes�I am.)

I have a plan for the wall above the dresser too � I already have everything I�ll need. Can�t wait to get it up there!:

And yes, there ARE about 50 holes in that wall from the various changes I�ve made to it. :) They�ll all be covered with my plan. I�m not even gonna fill them. Buwahahaha!!!  :)

I�m hoping to get the rest of the changes made to this part of the room by the end of this week, so I�ll show you as soon as I�m done. There�s some other stuff I�m working on elsewhere in the space too, but that is going to take a bit longer.

But for now�I simple cannot believe the difference a little editing and new drapes made�the before:

And after:

WHOO, swoon, ACK�Happy Valentine�s Day to ME�I am love! Ha! :)

Can�t wait to show you the rest! So far it�s turning out just like it looked in my head�just hope the rest of it does. (I love when that happens!)

P.S. I have not even hemmed the drapes yet�that�s how not completed this room is. Did I mention I have little to no patience?? :)

Like my version of the Ballard Designs cafe shelves?
You�ll LOVE Knock Off Decor!