So I thought it would be easiest to start with the living room. It was one of the rooms that needed little to no 'fixing up' other than paint. It was also one of the only rooms I really had any sort of idea of what I wanted it to look like.
This photo was taken on one of the first walk throughs we did of the house. We both loved the cut-outs in the wall that is shared with the dining room. Of course I have plenty of trinkets to fill those spaces :) It is a nice size room with two windows that let in great natural light.
Over Thanksgiving break, my sister and brother-in-law came over for a day to help paint and do some repairs. Wheezy also kept us company as you can see. She loves to sit right where you need to paint. I believe she walked away with a little gray paint on her fur this day. This little photo shows where the room meets the entryway. When you walk in the door the living room is to your left and the family room is on your right (with the stairway and little hall space to the kitchen in between).
These first few photos aren't great quality. Sorry about that. But the IPhone is just so much more convenient to carry around most of the time! Below is another view of the room closest to the entryway. When we moved in all the walls were an off white color. They mostly looked slightly dirty and the paint seemed to be a flat finish so it all looked pretty dull and lifeless. We decided to paint all the walls (except one) a light gray. It is Modest Silver by Valspar.
I had known from the beginning that I wanted to have an accent wall. I really wanted a cool patterned wall paper or stencil. Jon was fine with the idea and I started to look up different removable wallpapers. I found a lot of beautiful patterns but was a little thrown off by how expensive they all were. I ordered a sample piece from a seller on Etsy but decided we just weren't willing to spend that kind of money. So, my mom suggested we make our own stencil from the pattern we liked. Great idea! That is where this teal color comes in to play. The design we ended up liking had teal, gray and white in it. So we painted the wall teal and planned to stencil over it with gray and white. The teal is called Teal Zeal by Olympic.
Well, as you can see from the 'finished' photo below, we still have yet to stencil. We knew it would be a time consuming task so decided to wait until after the holidays. But the more we looked at the teal wall, the more we liked it just as it was. I found that awesome artwork at a thrift store (more on that below) and it just works for now. I am still flirting with the idea of stenciling a pattern but have no immediate plans.
The couch is from Macy's. It has a great MCM feel to it and is the perfect shade of gray. Having a living room AND family room was new to us so we had known we would need to at least buy a new sofa. We had found the one we wanted a few months before closing. Waiting to purchase it was hard :) But it was fun to be able to finally buy it once the house was officially ours.
We had the black chairs in our previous place. I found them at an estate sales several years ago. The beautiful silver branch side table was a gift from Jon for Christmas. I had seen it in Home Goods a few weeks before Christmas and really loved it.
I just love this embroidered cat pillow. I found a pair of them at an estate sale (the other is on the matching black chair).
The bookcase was also in our old place. The good old Expedit from IKEA. I have already filled most of the shelves....but working on making it look not so cluttered.
I had seen this painting in a thrift shop sometime in late October right before we closed on the house. I had thought it was pretty cool at the time but hadn't bought it because it was big, I wasn't sure where I would put it and in my opinion it was priced a little too high.
I must have liked it more than I realized though because it crossed my mind several times in the next month and a half and once we decided not to stencil the wall right away, I realized it would be a perfect place to hang it. It had been almost two months though and I was afraid someone would have snatched it up already. But one Saturday morning I went back to find out and I was so excited to see it still hanging there! The woman almost didn't sell it to me because she said she thought the guy in charge just meant it for display. I almost freaked out on her (lol) but then she saw a price tag on it and went and asked and was told it was for sale. Perfect!
It has the right colors and look for the room. I especially love that it hangs like a vintage school room map. That was Jon's least favorite part :)
So there you have it! the first room 'tour'. There is still a little left to do in the room though. I still want to hang some more art and pictures on the other walls and we are still searching for the right curtains. Will give a little update once we finish those things. :)
