A new project! Giving the living room a bit of a much needed face lift! This idea has been brewing in my head for a while now, but I was hesitant to do it because, quite frankly, I am more than a little embarrassed to show you the before picture of the room. Plus, it’s sort of a weird feeling to be posting my personal space so publicly. But then I figured, I managed to suck it up and show the horrendous weed-covered yard in Operation Front Door, and this isn’t as bad (or so I hope) and that was just the motivation I needed to get the yard cleaned up. Let’s hope that happens with this project, too.
Alright here it is: the dreaded before. A room filled with hand-me-downs, thrift store finds, and a collage of other stuff that B and I tried to mesh together when we merged our respective college apartments into one shared space.
Of course, like with Operation Front Door, I’m not doing a complete overhaul because this is still a rental, so I’m not about to spend mucho moolah on this space (and painting isn’t an option). Some things, of course, are going to stay–like I think we’ll keep the harp and B’s cool table he made (in the foreground). But here’s what the current list of items that didn’t make the cut:
1. New Wall Art: Updating that wall was really what sparked the idea of this whole project. It started last June (as in a year ago) when I gave B a “coupon” for framing his awesome thesis images as his birthday gift. Welp, yet another birthday has passed and he still hasn’t gotten his gift. It’s time to fix that.
2. Revamp The Lamp: I’ve seen so many cool lamp revamps that there’s no reason I can’t breathe a little life into this one. Who knows what I’ll do but I’m pretty sure it will involve spray paint and tossing the lamp shade…
3. The Giant Chair Issue: We each had a big club chair that are now crowded into a tiny space overwhelming a drab end table. Something needs to be done. This is where budget might come into play and it might just turn into a round up of what could be cool if I weren’t so cheap.
So that’s the new project! Hope you enjoy seeing the process of what I do, I know I’m excited to see how it turns out!
7 Comments
I’ve always felt weird about showing my house on my blog, although I think my anxiety was increased because I know some of my students read my blog. In any event, I noticed the cool table right away (he made it? so sexy!) and I am not even remotely being sarcastic when I say that the harp adds a lot. Good luck with the re-do. And get new furniture if you want it! At some point, it’s worth it to feel like you’ve got your own stuff.
Thanks Kelly! Such encouraging words! I’ll pass the compliment onto Brandon about the table. He’ll love it.
How fun! If you’re already ready to ‘refresh’, then anything you do will feel like an improvement. Change is good! Looking forward to seeing how it goes!
Thanks! and I hope so. Posting this definitely gave me the motivation I needed to get it going.
I love this, I can’t wait to see how it looks! I think I may start on my living room… It’s always the same, you change one thing and you end up stripping walls, glossing and painting! Kelly and I have just updated our couch recently (i moved in with her a while ago and my couch has been in the spare room for well over a year – they’re expensive these days!), so anyways, i’m dying to get the dust sheets out and take a wall stripper to the walls, and slap some new paper on! 😛 Thanks for sharing – i look forward to following 🙂
[…] Buy a good, new piece of grown up furniture (preferably a couch) 10. Actually redo the living room 11. Redo the bedroom 12.Host a dinner party 13. Buy a house (fingers crossed this becomes a […]
[…] is going we need to fill you in on what the house was. Because aside from a few photos of the living room and bedroom, there has never been an official house tour. So get cozy and ready for the somewhat […]