Living Room Update

This blog is in real need of me updating the permanent pages - like the  home tour, projects, etc.  Its so neglected.  So to help get this blog up to date with all things home I decided to do a quick room by room post update that will allow me to finally begin working on that.  Today I'm starting with the first room in our home, the living room.  Its probably been shown the most here more recently but now its officially up to date in my brain and helps me move on to other posts - so here goes round one of home spaces - the living room.

This space is probably one of my favorites in our house.  Its cozy & quaint, lived in & simple and full of old & new - just how I like it.  

So in the last several years since living here we haven't done a lot of "work" necessarily in this room - its been more about adding the decor we like.  The first big project we did in this room was to paint all the trim white and the entire room a new fresh neutral.  I still love it.  We also changed out the ceiling fan not too long ago which really helped to update to space as well.

Some things I have never really posted about on the blog was adding the wall shelving (ikea), finally finding neutral patterned curtains I love (they were a Tuesday Morning find), switching out the tv stand (also ikea) and finding the most perfect sofa for this space.  The sofa we chose was the karlstad corner sofa from ikea.  I can't say enough about how much we love it (or maybe how much we love ikea).  Its super comfy and really durable - which is great when you have small kids living on it and big kids visiting often.  You can choose any arrangement you want to work for your space so its really versatile.  Its one of our favorite things we have purchased for our home.

I can't stop picking up cute pillows for our sofa...its probably getting a little out of hand.  The striped silhouette wall art is a little project I did way back and still one of my faves.  I evan have a little post for the monogram wall art on the shelf.  The lamp is from Target and the little cabinet is an antique piece I've had forever.

This navy chair is another addition we have had for about a year, a little target find.  Recently I posted about making the framed instagram collage, a really easy and fun project.  And also, Silas' own personal project - the "I love dinosaurs" chalkboard sign.  I'm still working on adding more to the walls in here - there seems to be a lot of blank spaces.  For some reason hanging things on the wall is the most difficult thing for me to do in a space.  We've been here four years now and just this year I hung something up on the wall - I know, settle down.

Oh, and the flooring - original hardwood floors we found under the carpet...such a great score.

This little space has come a long way since moving in!  I love to see the changes.  I definitely have a few more things on my to do list for this space but its one of the most finished rooms we probably have.   The room gets used a ton, by us, family, students, community groups and more and we love having a comfy place to share with others.  

Thanks for stopping by today!

Living Room Update:

Updating the Ceiling Fan

The best part about updating an older home is the crazy uneven walls and ceilings, reconfigured wiring and past owners attempts at diys.  It makes a simple task, like updating a ceiling fan really fun.  We went into this project thinking it would be a quick- out with the old, in with the new- less than and hour deal, but things aren't always what they seem.

 

So first for a second, lets talk about ceiling fans.  I know they are not everyone's favorite.  After living here for several years I realized I really enjoyed having a ceiling fan in our living room.  The added refreshing air was quite pleasant.  Are ceiling fans the prettiest?  No, and the one we had was pretty awful.  So I went on a search for a ceiling fan that wasn't atrocious, huge and not crazy expensive.  After weighing my options I chose a little modern styled fan I found on wayfair.  Its small, but our living room is small so it works.  The last thing I wanted was a big fan taking up all the precious space that we don't have.  Something I have learned about updating your home is this - its your home, you are living in it, you know what you like, so go with that.  Don't worry about sticking to design rules so much or going with the most trendy thing.  After months of living with this little sweet fan, I still love it.  Added bonus - I got this fan way less than the listed price.  I stalked wayfair for months for a sale, then I signed up to receive emails to get 10% off my first purchase.  So with the sale plus the 10% off it was less than $40.  #Score.  #It pays to be patient.

Now lets talk about the frustrations of older home updates.  As we excitedly took down the old clunker fan we began to realize something - well a few somethings.  One, this fan didn't want to come down and was rigged up pretty oddly so a new one going in was going to be...not a quick fix.  And two, our new little sweet fan was well, little and the old one had left behind quite the mark on our ceiling.  We were glad to have our trusted friend Mark here to help us Justin with our wiring issue (lets face it, I just took pictures and freaked out about the big mark on the ceiling).  This was a you hold this, while I do this kind of job.  And, because of our ceiling debacle we actually had to do this twice.  Yay!

After we realized this was not going to look very good we decided to try the little ceiling medallion trick.  And thankfully, it did the job of prettying this whole thing up.  There were several options at our local hardware store, but I just wanted something on the smaller and quaint side.  According to the kind lady at the store there is a method of calculating the proper ceiling medallion size for your room but that really didn't matter to me.  I knew what I was looking for, who cares about rules.

I actually really love the ceiling medallion and think it adds a little charm to the room - even if it is a ceiling fan.  Old vs new...I like the new much better.

Before, I felt like the ceiling fan was a big eye sore in the room, now it seems to fit - plus its functional so its a great mix for me.

You would think that after all of these light fixture changes we would have known this would be more of a deal than we initially anticipated but we tend to forget in the excitement of it all.  This is actually one of my favorite updates we have done in the whole house since it made such a big difference in the room.  At the end of the day, it did take a little longer to complete but totally worth it.

Winter Pinterest Challenge: A Fabric Ottoman

Ok, today is the day - time to share our Pinterest Challenge projects!  I'm so excited to see what everyone has done!  We totally took on something we have never tried before so let me get to sharing..

At first I was totally focused on doing some sort of organization type project - since we have been all about that around here lately.  But then, we got a wild whim and decided to just try something we have never done - build a piece of furniture....a fabric ottoman to be exact.  It was actually a lot of fun, not too difficult, we learned a lot and I enjoyed working on the project together with Justin.  This was totally a tag-team effort...with a lot of the effort being on Justin's end of things :).  Someone has to pick out fabric though right?

So here are my pinspiring pinspirations...

I totally love both of these!  The first one is from West Elm and its awesome but I don't have $400 to spend on an ottoman right now.  I love the idea of using an old coffee table for the base of the ottoman done by Meredith from the Not So Newlywed blog but we didn't have a coffee table or have time to try and find something that would work for our room.   So, we just decided to build it from scratch. I feel like we kind of just made this up as we went along but somehow it worked out - thank goodness.  I would not say our method was perfect or the outcome was perfection but like I said, it was fun tackling something new together.

Here is what we did:

First we determined the size we wanted to build our ottoman...I needed visual aid for sizes and laying out tape on the floor totally helped me.

Next we purchased our materials and began measuring and cutting. We bought a heavy duty piece of reinforced plywood and measured and cut it to the right size (this was going to be our base).  We made ours 3'x3'.  We used a laser level to get our edge straight and Justin cut everything off.

Then we used two by fours and cut those into smaller square blocks to add a little extra height and stability to the legs and base and nailed those to the plywood.

Next came the cutting and glueing of the foam down to our plywood.  We bought our foam at Joanne fabrics.  We laughed because they cut it for you at the store with what looks like an electric turkey carving knife.  So when we got home the best we could mimic was a bread knife - and it worked.  After the foam was glued down we covered it with fabric batting - stapling it around the entire base and then covered that with our fabric.  I just used a staple gun and made sure everything was pulled tight and even and that the fabric was straight.  Oh, the fabric I used for this project is actually a shower curtain that I found at Target!  I loved the ikat print so I went with it and its a pretty durable fabric as well.

I think one of the toughest parts of this project was keeping Silas from jumping/sitting on it while we were working.  He was so excited and enjoyed helping.  I think all of his cars and animals also had an adventure on it during the building process.  I have a feeling this ottoman will be used for many more car and train expeditions.

Ok, back to the project - we nailed another block to the corners base to give it more height, drilled in the holes for the legs and screwed the legs in.  We were getting close to being finished.  Next, we added a piece of trim around all of the edges to just finish it out a bit.

Finally, I remembered that I needed to paint the legs - so I actually did this last, which worked out fine.  It might would have been slightly easier to do this before you screw them in.

We love the result!  We also love that it only took us a day - and that was including shopping for all of the materials.

We have small house and limited seating so adding a few more spots to sit when we have a big crowd is nice.  Our students come over a lot and usually end up on the floor so we are hoping this will give us a few more spots for group time, bible studies and whatever else. Plus Silas has been calling it his big chair so it has already gotten plenty of action.  We loved the feeling of accomplishment after we finished.  Justin declared that he was going to build a sofa next - I said maybe we should try something like shelves.  This has definitely got us ready for the next project!

Don't forget to check out Katie, Sherry and Michelle today!  They have some awesome projects they are sharing - you don't want to miss them!!

Now comes the part where you share your amazing projects too!

- If you have already blogged about it just link up your projects below! 

1.  Click on the "add your link" button

2.  Add the url of your specific post

3. Type in the name or description of your project in the "name" blank

We'd love for you to link back over to our projects within your own post- (here's Sherry's, Katie's and Michelle's)

*Also remember to link back to your inspiration project found on pinterest and to link back to the original source so they also get some love too!

We can't wait to see the amazing projects you guys have been working on!

A Few Living Room Updates

So I think its finally time our living room started getting some love.  When we moved in we painted and added some blinds and curtains, tossed in our furniture and haven't really shown much attention to this space since then.  It's pretty plain, and in need of color.  Of course there are tons of things I would like to change - for example our sofas, the floors and the ceiling fan.  However the budget does not extend that far so we have to work with what we have for now.  It will be a slow process of replacing some things and making some things new.  I want to start bringing in some color to the space  though so I finally picked up some pillows and accessories to begin this process...

Here's a little trek through time to remember what we started with and where we are now...

We painted all of the trim white and painted the walls.  You can't tell but the color is a much softer and calming shade called Tattered Sail by Olympic.  We brought in new shades and curtains and that's pretty much it - woooo.

These sofas are pretty comfy but boy I don't like them.  But with a two year old and lots of teenagers over all of the time, I'm really not ready to invest into something new until these have just had it.  I guess at least they are not neon purple or something.

So here we are now with a few little additions.  I'm finally playing around with putting things on the wall - it only took me two years.  I have several art and photo things I'm working on so I'll be sharing those soon.  For now, here's a glimpse of one of the items I have up so far..

I changed out the old lamp shade with a new one from Target - I love how that seemed to immediately brighten that spot up and it also gives off more light at night.  My sweet husband gave me a West Elm gift card for Christmas so I have been picking up a few things here and there like this little birdie, coasters, blue throw and ikat bowl.

I have been looking for pillows - forever.  My issue with pillows is usually the price.  I just can't get over paying $30 or more for a throw pillow, I just can't do it.  Target put a bunch on clearance last week and I snagged a few - this little geometric guy was only $7.58 - I was sold.  The white ones are Nate Berkus for Target and they were $12.  I was so excited to get such great prices on cute pillows.  

One thing about our living room that I need to start tackling is our cord issue - we have many as you can see above.  This is not jiving with my new "get organized" kick so I need to get on this.  I'll be honest though, I'm kind of dreading this project. When I figure this mess out I will definitely let you know.

So just a few little pops of color brought a lot more warmth and coziness to this space.  I'm liking it so far!  I have more plans for wall photos and artwork and some cord nightmares to face so this little room is definitely a work in progress.  So how about you guys...have any plain rooms that need some pops of color?  Do you have sofas that you loathe but are stuck with or cord madness that you dread tackling?  Share with me your living room woes!

Hope you have a wonderful weekend and stay safe and warm!

PS - don't forget about the Pinterest Challenge going on now!  Link back up next Wednesday, Feb 27th!  

The Verdict is Still Out

We have been working on a few things that have been lingering around and waiting for completion.  One of those things happens to be hanging curtains in our family room.  After we decided on the bamboo roman shades for the windows we didn't want to add a heavy or competing curtain since we like them so much.  So we immediately decided on finding a billowy, white, light and airy curtain.  Something that would add a finished look but without taking away our natural light and weighing down the space.  We purposefully hung the shades higher and a little wider in anticipation of adding curtains to help our room look higher and larger.  After looking around at a few places we determined that Ikea had the most affordable options so we went with the Wilma curtains -only $9.99 a pair!  They are white, billowish (yes, I just made that up) and light and airy - just what we were looking for.  I couldn't wait to see them up -- until they were up.  Now, to be honest we aren't so sure.  I don't know if it's because we have gone so long without curtains that it just seems weird to have them up now or if we just don't like them because we just don't like them.  Since we have had them up for a few days I can say that I am liking them a lot better and also after looking at the before and after shots.  So, we need your help - what do you think?  Curtains or no curtains?

I'm almost thinking that stretching out the curtain rods a little more and widening the curtain space would be better, maybe it just feels too scrunched?  I know that's what Justin wants to hear since he already re-hung them twice because I didn't like them the first time.  I know he has to love me to just sweetly smile and redo them for me, especially since he has told me several times that hanging curtains is not his favorite thing.

One of my issues is the way the sofas press up against the curtains.  I know we can move them out further and that will help so that should be an easy fix.  Also, there is no way to center these monster couches so the off-centeredness drives me a little crazy but it's not the end of the world for me.

Leave a comment and share what you think!  To keep or not to keep?  Also don't forget we have a giveaway going on Here!  

Storage Wars

Nothing I can do about these,  I think the swing is on the outs though

King Silas and his toys have unleashed an all out battle against our house.  This is one of many battles currently waging.  King Silas also has begun a war with our dog Chatham - of course he is currently winning - he approaches and she retreats, just one tail pull has Chatham in hiding (I know, that's not a lot different than before).  But, back to the toy battle, we not only have large toy items like swings and saucers to decorate our rooms with we now have an abundance of baby toy items scattered throughout each room.  It's not that I don't like his toys, I know he enjoys them and that makes me happy, it's that I don't want his toys to rule our house anymore, it's just not their kingdom.

When we moved we chose to put a fun storage shelf in our family/living room for things like toys and such but it just wasn't quite functional for the job I had given it.  So I set out on a search for ammo (aka baskets) against all the toy mess.  I already have baskets serving as toy containment in his room but the toy mayhem was spreading throughout the house now and I just didn't have enough to do the job.

This little shelf just wasn't working

Cute little basket of toys in Silas' room

Secret bag of toys tucked under his crib, along with some blankets

The fun little shelf was bought at our area flea market a few years back and it's very shabby chic oddly shaped and oddly sized so finding baskets that would work posed a difficult find.  Justin gave me the measurements and I went on my way, forgetting my tape measure behind - luckily Homegoods provides little paper rulers so that saved me.  I was able to find a few that would work after much debating and the outcome is much better.  I have now dominated the baby toys and won the battle.  I'm sure they will regroup and begin to grow in numbers and strike again, but hopefully I will be ready for them the next time and meet them head on.

Much Better, Serving it's purpose nicely now

Toys are behaving, nicely tucked away

Also managed to get the little blanket in there

Let's face it, those toys will never stay neatly in those baskets, at least I can dream.

This past Sunday we celebrated the greatest event ever to occur in our history, the resurrection of Christ.  Our pastor gave a very awesome message on the significance of the empty tomb and what it means for us.  One of those messages was that of peace.  For some reason having peace in our lives can sometimes be somewhat of a struggle. We battle our fears, sins, pride, we even battle with God. We fear that God is holding all of our missteps and mistakes against us, when in reality our sins were taken care of by the blood of Christ on the cross and through his resurrection peace was made between us and Him.  When we put our faith in the living Lord, Jesus, we have peace - eternally with God.  Our God desires for us to live a life of peace, not in fear, in sin, in hesitation but a life lived knowing that God is our savior, guide, father, comfort, healer, sustainer, peace maker. Don't live you life in battle against God, find peace in the resurrection instead.

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus Philipians 4:7

 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.  Colossians 1:19-20