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.

Restoring Shine to an Old Hardwood Floor

If you own an older home that has carpet you often wonder, could there be hardwood floors hidden underneath?  And then you think, "surely no one would cover up a hardwood floor, that seems ridiculous!" That is definitely something we wondered when we bought our house several years ago- but, we were never quite ready to discover the truth.  So we lived with carpet that I really couldn't stand for over 2 years before we even looked.  If you learn anything from me on this blog please learn to check under your carpet as soon as you move in! You never know what treasure lies beneath.

So one random day we got up the nerve to peek underneath.  One of our friends Mark was over and we were watching March Madness and for some reason we thought yes, this is this best time for this. First we pulled back a little by the vents and we could see it - it was right there the whole time.

Boy were we excited, but then a little rush of nervousness ran over us - what was the condition of the floor and were we ready to dive into that?  That feeling was a fleeting moment because we barely blinked and dove right in and started ripping out the carpet.  It's great when you really don't have a plan and you pull out carpet while moving furniture around the whole situation.  Skills.  So, below you can see the condition of the floor.  Not the best but not the worst either.  I was just exited that the floor was seamless throughout.  No weird patches or major issues.

After we got the living room carpet out we decided to pull out the rest.  Two of our bedrooms and the the little hallway is all hardwood (the kitchen, bathroom and addition of the house is not).  The biggest issue the flooring had was paint splatters.  Somewhere down the line I guess the idea of carpet sounded awesome so they haphazardly painted the rooms with no regard to the beautiful hardwood floor.  So for days I scrubbed and scrapped little paint splotches until the floor was clean.  It was pretty awful but worth it.   I'm sure you are all now wondering, why not refinish the floors?  Yes, totally something we want to do but currently our schedule just has not lended us to that.  We just haven't found a good time yet.  So, luckily for us the floor is in good enough shape to get through for a while just the way it is.  Actually the bedrooms are awesome, the only really bad room is the living room - but we are making it work.

So after the paint was all cleaned up I searched around for a good cleaning solution.  I settled on the Bona products.  I have to say, I really like them.  I used the floor cleaner and scrubbing pad that came with it first and then used the floor polish.  I just followed the directions from the bottles.  It was really easy.  Oh, and side note Target carries this product and it cost significantly less than the other large hardware stores.

Another side note, someone really like their round rug years ago.  After you apply the first coat of polish it will look super glossy (I chose the glossy finish as opposed to the satin).  It will not dry this glossy.  I ended up applying 3 coats of polish until I was satisfied with the finish.

Here is the final result...So much better right?  You have to kind of look above at the ripping out of carpet pictures to see the before but it definitely made a huge difference.

I just don't understand why someone covered this up!

If you have an older hardwood floor that you aren't ready to completely refinish yet then I would say give these products a try.  I was super surprised at how much the floors came to life after.

I'm sitting here months later looking at the floor and I can say that the shine is definitely still here.  It has really held up well.  We love, love our floors and love that we are bringing a little bit of the original part of the house back to life.  

Living Room Update

We realized we haven't put many living room updates up since we have moved in, a big reason is that we are still working on a lot of things and it isn't quite what we want it to be yet.  So today we wanted to share with you what we have going on in our living/family room now.  It's bare minimum but at least we have the toy situation under control.

So here are a couple of before photos - everything in our house was painted the same ugly beige color, trim and all (unless it was wood paneling).  The first thing we have worked on is painting the trim white and the walls a nice neutral color - Tattered Sail by Olympic (now one of my favorite colors).  One of the things we really like about this room is the chair rail molding and wide window trim.  It really adds so much character to a pretty boring room.

We also have added new bamboo roman shades, still waiting to add some soft billowy curtains though.  All of our furniture are things we already owned.  

Under all of the carpet lies hardwood floors, one day down the road we will be pulling up all the carpet to refinish the floors.  Right now, it's kind of nice having carpet while Silas is crawling.

We also want to purchase a rug and throw pillows for the sofas to brighten them up.  I'm always a fan of those beautiful white couches you see in all of the magazines but that just wasn't practical with a baby, a black furry dog and teenagers visiting often, so we went for sturdy leather ones that would last a while.  They might not be as shabby chic as white ones but we like them and they are holding up well.

Everyone always thinks these glass cup holders are ashtrays - I want to replace them too since I'm tired of answering that question every time someone comes over.  We also don't have any kind of console for our TV and things, we are using this antique piece right now and we actually kind of like it.  We may or may not change that in the future, I happen to really like antiques so I will push for it.

Well, that's it, our living/family room.  I love how it is wide open to the kitchen and how cozy it feels.  We will continue to post updates as we work on little things here and there.  Have a great weekend!