The Living Room

Our condo featured on open living room – dining room – kitchen space, but I treated each of the areas as its own zone. Click to check out the dining room and kitchen.

Here is what the living room looked like when I moved in- builder beige walls but amazing, thick crown molding.

I was very lucky that my condo’s carpet was in such great shape when I first moved in. We wanted to add flooring, but that never happened.

The first thing I did was paint! I chose Olympic One’s Summer Breeze from Lowe’s. I think it is gorgeous and makes the white molding just pop.

Next I filled it with my old furniture. It was a lot of accumulated furniture that I moved from apartment to apartment since college.

Next, I rearranged the furniture for a more open floor plan:

I rearranged and was SO much happier with it, though there was much to be done:

We had a bad couch situation for a while after we moved in together, but eventually we got it figured out.

Here’s the current look. Bleh, I know. I want a deep blue or grey L shaped sectional to go in the corner.

This piece was beside the couch and was one of the few things in the living room that I actually liked at that point. The drawers all worked and I got it at the Habitat for Humanity store in Cary, NC. The lamp was a thrifted brass lamp that I spray painted and the weird genie lamp is from Lowes and holds pet treats. The framed picture is my sister and creeps people out (don’t you think it looks like a funeral pic? It’s from her sorority and she is very much alive, no worries.)

This was our “entertainment” set up for a while. It was rough bachelor/bachelorette status for a while.

I color coded the bookshelf while watching househunters one night while Sean was out of town but was too lazy to do the other one…. typical.

This TV stand was from Walmart and is coincidentally how Sean & I met. & that’s not the same lamp- I had 2.

Sean built this custom drift wood coffee table and I am ga-ga over it!

Then, Sean surprised me with a new entertainment center! The look is much more polished!

We wanted a new couch then, but didn’t have it in the budget, so we got a chair at World Market and covered the sofa with a cover from Bed Bath and Beyond.

And we added a huge blue rug from Target!

Then, we updated the gallery wall, lamps, and it was Christmas again.

Then we got a new couch! hurray!

Here’s some of what we completed in the living room:

• paint the walls
• get a big built in looking tv stand with bookshelves on either side
• get one large sectional couch in navy or dark grey
• upgrade the coffee table/ottoman

As an added bonus, here’s an inspirational collage I whipped up here: