house stuff

Living Room Renovation | Before & After

March 16, 2016

Howdy! Ready for another reveal? Going into this renovation I didn’t think the living room was going to be that big of a change. We were going to laminate the ceilings, paint everything, and spiff it up with some updated furniture, otherwise it was just the same ol’ room.

ha! I laugh at my simplistic thoughts of last year, because this room has definitely undergone a transformation. Should I remind you of what it used to look like?

*Sigh* Too much furniture, too much stuff, and so so dark! And remember wayy back when we were totally overloaded on overstuffed furniture?

Gah! I have no words. (If you must see more of the before you can check it out here)

Here’s where we are now:

Big change, eh? We still have a few lingering remnants of the old days: the Baumritter Chair (that I still need to recover), the harp, and the gallery wall, though that has been expanded a bit. B’s coffee table moved its way upstairs because it was too big with our new sofa.

New Sofa? Yes, that’s right! We donated our 25 year-old green sleeper sofa and bought a brand spankin’ new sofa. It wasn’t an easy decision – picking the new one, that is. Every Sunday for 6 weeks we went sofa shopping. We narrowed it down to three contenders by about week two and every week after that we went to the same three stores and just sat on the same floor models week after week. All the store associates knew us and they didn’t even bother us after the 3rd week; they knew we were those crazies that just couldn’t make a decision on a couch.

We wanted as much sofa as we could get, but our room isn’t that big and we definitely learned our lesson about big furniture. So we marked out all of the contenders on the floor and moved around all our other furniture in the room to see which one would fit the best. Also, having a chaise was pretty much a non-negotiable. We both sit on the couch and having a chaise gives ample room for everyone (including the dog) to fully lounge.

We finally decided on the Jane Loft Bi-Sectional by Gus Modern and we love it. We have friends that have the larger version of the sofa and they have had nothing but good things to say about it. Plus they’ve had it for years and it doesn’t look all worn out, which was a big deciding factor for us.

I know, I know, we need pillows. I’m completely over thinking the pillows like its a once-in-a-lifetime decision. I need to get over it and get moving in the pillow department. Hopefully soon.

We also need an end table for the chair, but I’m also wary of bringing more furniture into the room, so that hasn’t happened yet, either.

B’s mom stitched us this beautiful blanket. Check out that handiwork!

Ahh, the credenza. How awesome is it!? I’ve loved the Broyhill Brasilia line for years (and even blogged about it here) and I got B hooked on it when we were looking for a credenza here. I would search craigslist every day hoping one would be available in the area. One did come along but it was in pretty bad condition so we had to pass on it. Then on New Year’s Day, in the middle of dinner, B gets a mysterious text and promptly sends me upstairs to the bathroom with Lucy and puts noise cancelling headphones on my head. When I was cleared to come back down this had appeared in our living room. He had it shipped up from Florida. Pretty awesome.

One other thing that stuck around was the bookshelves. We cleaned them up a lot and got new (and more) storage baskets.

Our entry area was spiffed up with a new front door and a shoe storage rack that actually hides the shoes and looks a lot cleaner than the mismatched cubbies we had before. We ended up removing the legs and just wall mounted it because of the floor trim which I actually like better than having the two legs on either side.