Living Room Update #2

A while back I posted about my quick living room re-do here as well as other living room updates here. Well, we have continued to work on our living room here and there over the past few months. Our latest change has been our coffee table and sofa!

I had previously said I would like to find a sofa like this:

We ended up buying this sofa ( for a GREAT deal and I LOVE it!)

It has nice clean lines, is very comfortable and definitely has more space than the microfiber loveseat we were dealing with before.

You can also see that we changed out our coffee table. This was a free storage box that was being thrown away at my school. The two front doors slide open. There is a large amount of storage inside. As soon as I find baskets to fit and reorganizing toys, this little baby will be put to full use. It also needs a tray and some books on top. But for now, it sits like this. The hubby painted it Martha Stewart yellow (not sure of the exact color at the moment). I love the color.. but need to figure out where else to add this color into the room.. pillows? throw? artwork? You can also see on the right hand side of the couch the lamp I painted a while back. Originally I had thought about this color:

But actually ended up painting the lamp slightly darker, here it is now:

I still think I really like this paint for the wall:

I want something nice and neutral so as I change pillows and accessories, the wall will still work. I don't want paint this room more than once!

Another idea I have added to the room is doing a billy bookshelf built-in inspired by Maillardville Manor and I Heart Organizing. This shelf will house books, toys, the TV and components, a few decorative items, and my new file box for the new file system we are putting into place in our home. That is an August project, and I can't wait for it! I also would like to add 2 rows of 4 photos each along one of our walls, similar to what Jen did at I Heart Organizing ( I love that blog!). I can't decide if those photos should go along the wall behind the sofa or along the wall that will be perpendicular to the new built-in wall. Either way I am excited about an August Ikea shopping trip: 3 billy bookcases, 6 baskets, a few green/orange/white boxes, 8 black photo frames to hold 8x10 photos. I also really like these photo ledges

Ribba ledge from IKEA

and am thinking if the photos don't go behind the sofa, two of these could go there side by side to look like 1 long shelf. I am over my floating shelves I have right now in that place.

I am excited for the small changes so far. I am really excited for the changes to come: chair is ordered and will arrive in August, paint in August as well as the billy built-ins and other decorative pieces! Woohoo! We are getting close to a re-done room! The biggest change will be the trim! White trim to come in the hallway, dining room and living room! That will only leave the guest room and guest bath without white trim upstairs!

So here is the before and after of the sofa area:
Before:

Microfiber loveseat, brown lamp, trunk coffee table

After:

Leather sofa, yellow storage coffee table and blue lamp

I hope you are enjoying this decorating journey with me! Enjoy!

Update on the Living Room Update

Sound a little confusing?? Well just 11 days ago I posted here about a 30 minute living room make over I did. This make over was basically a furniture rearrange. During that process I realized (what I guess my husband had realized months years ago) I have TOO  much brown stuff! So, the quest to bring some color into the room began!

I started with the easier and cheaper items to change. First.. the lamp.

This lamp is actually part of a set (the other being in our basement). The set was purchased at an auction for $5.00... about 4 years ago. They were originally orange, which you can see below through the chipped paint. I spray painted them then this lovely dark brown color and added the shades. 

While looking for spray paint at Wal-Mart I found a section of sale spray paint and decided $2.00 a can for Bahama Sea wasn't bad. It was a little lighter than I was originally thinking, but thought it would go well with the Amy Butler fabrics I had seen online for pillows. 

So, I began the process of painting the lamp. Taping off areas, wrapping the cord. Sat the lamp outside to paint and no, it was too windy. 

So, into the garage we went to paint the lamp Bahama Sea by Krylon. 

Look to the bottom left-there is a glimpse of a major drip

Thinking this would be fine, no problem, painted the lamp. Well-no! This was an exhausting process! After the paint dried, I noticed some terrible drips. I took sand paper and sanded the drips in a downward direction. This seemed to help. I wiped everything off to make sure all dust was gone. Then I attempted to repaint the sanded sections. This made a HUGE blemish. I then waited for this to dry and attemped to sand this large blemish off as well. Then I read to use razor blade and scrape the drips off. I attempted to do this.. terrible results! 

Back to Wal-Mart I went to get more paint since I was now completely out of Bahama Sea. Also there I saw bottles of gray primer spray paint on sale for $1.12 and thought this might come in handy. I ended up attempting to sand and scrape some more.. more disaster. I used the gray to paint over the blue.. no help.I think this whole process was probably even longer than I am explaining, it took quite a few days and trips to the store.  I then read to use acetone (fingernail polish remover) to remove the paint. THIS WORKED! Thank goodness because I was thinking it was time to toss the lamp, I was just sick looking at it sit in the garage. The acetone quickly took off large areas of thick clumpy paint and smoothed things out. I then purchased a new can of paint, this time NOT on sale and tried Global Blue also from Krylon. I gave the lamp a nice even layer of spray paint. I really like the color! It gives a little splash of blue to the room. Hopefully we can get fabric soon and get some pillows made (I already bought $4.00 on sale pillows from Target to cover). 

Some photos of the newly painted lamp (disclaimer again-I am not a photographer). 

The original purchased paint-Bahama Sea

The final color-Global Blue

Well... not every time!

painted lamp and fabric box

 As you can see I also added a fabric covered box. This was just a regular cardboard box, actually I think it said rotini on the side. So,I believe it came from my school's cafeteria. I covered the box using a few scraps I had. The front definitely needs a decorative something or other. I just haven't quite figured out what it should be. The gray band across the middle front will hopefully correspond with some pillow fabric one day.

So far I am pretty happy with the $8.12 update of the living room. the spray paint ($2.00 first can of spray paint + $2.00 second can of spray paint + $1.12 gray primer spray paint + $3.00 final spray paint = $8.12). The box was free, the fabric was all scraps. I don't know what will go in the box yet.. but something will.I am sure Ella will house some toys in there, or maybe photo albums could go there, or throws. I will show how I covered the box soon. I have seen this on several other blogs, if I run across the exact blog I first saw the idea on, I will be sure to share that. 

Let me know what you think! I can't wait for the BIG changes.. items on the floating shelves.. sofa.. pillows... art work??

Dining Room Storage

`A while back... yes a month ago almost while.. I wrote this post about the dining room china cabinet I purchased at a garage sale. After all of the travleing was over, this was one of our first projects to complete! I am using what is left of my summer to not only soak in some rays, take some naps, snuggle with my Ella bug... but also to get this house organized and ready for a new school year with me teaching on a new school calendar.

I started off by removing the drawers, handles, knobs and doors from the cabinet. I then got out my handy mouse sander and gave each piece a good sanding so my paint would adhere. After the sanding came the cleaning with Simple Green. Then.. the painting! I painted the piece black to match my dining room chairs.

I ended up doing 2 coats, with a light sanding on some areas after the first coat. I didn't do a clear coat or polyurethane though. I am scared that I will change my mind and decided to repaint the cabinet n the near future and it would be A LOT of work to sand through the clear coat.

As I was painting the cabinet I realized ALL of the wonderful items this cabinet can house. I grabbed the camera while the paint was drying and walked around the upstairs looking for items I have hiding through the living, dining room, and kitchen that really just don't have a home and now can be housed in this cabinet. Here is some of what I found:

Platters hiding behind pots and pans

A griddle sitting on top of the fridge and covered with junk that has nowhere to go!

The fridge holds a lot of stuff that can't fit anywhere else as you can see

Serving bowls hiding on top of games in the living room armoire

Appetizer plates and caddy hiding behind photos in the living room

more cute dishes hiding in the pantry

 Wow! Lots of things that need to find a new home! This doesn't even include the shelves of serving pieces hiding in the laundry area of our basement.

So, here it is.. all finished (almost) and full of platters, bowls, serving spoons, spreaders, ice tongs, ramekins, etc.

I am sure there will be a lot or rearranging of items on the shelves on top. This is how the shelves looked the first night after moving the cabinet inside.

The space before the cabinet was moved inside

Empty cabinet

Cabinet all moved in and filled!

Still missing doors.. need to find the new handles and also need new knobs for drawers

3 days later what the cabinet looks like

Closer view

 On the shelves:
Top Left: a monogrammed cheese platter with the letter "L" and a vase holding sea glass I have collected over the years (this is the one item I am not sure will stay)
Top Right: collection of old white pitchers my grandmother gave me as a wedding gift
Middle Shelf: a hand blown green glass pitcher, simple additions square bowls from pampered chef (they are used daily in our house), 3 ball jars; 1 containing sea shells and sharksteeth we have collected on the east coast the past 2 summers
Bottom Left: Salt and Pepper shakers, bamboo napkin holder (these are every day items we use)
Bottom Middle: Simple Additions rectangular platter and basket from Pampered Chef holding fresh fruit that we eat so it will change each day.
Bottom Right: Simple Additions appetizer plates with appetizer plate caddy from Pampered Chef
So.. you can see I have somewhat of a Pampered Chef addiction! I had a Pampered Chef wedding shower which helped me LOAD up on items.. and my best friend in VA used to sell pampered chef so that also just fed my addiction! I use a lot of it daily so I can justify it to myself :)

Loving it.. and yes still no doors on the bottom

So, there it is! The best new addition to our house! The storage is wonderful, the depth of the cabinet is perfect in our small dining area. You can still pull the bench out easily and sit to eat dinner.  I can't lie, I am just dreaming of the fall when I can break out the fall decor and change up the theme of the cabinet as well as during Christmas time. The possibilities are already running through my head!

 Let me know any suggestions of items to add/take away. As we make some changes in the living room I am sure I will do some more house shopping and change up the shelving a bit.

Enjoy!

                                                                    Tatertots and Jello

Traveling.... we are finally home!

My husband and I were done with our school year on June 2nd, I had graduate class June 4th and 5th and June 6th we began almost a month of traveling! We left Minnesota and headed west on our first trip.. driving.. we drove through Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, stopped for 3 days in Salt Lake City, Utah to visit my sister-in-law.. then she hopped in the car with us and we all headed to the Reno/Carson City/Tahoe area of Nevada for a family gathering (on the way home we went through South Dakota instead of Nebraska and Iowa). My husband's grandmother passed away in the fall of 2010 and we all met up to give our last respects to her ashes, to see her home in Carson City, and just spend some time as a family. All 5 of my husband's siblings were there along with each of their families, so all 8 grandchildren were there! Tons of fun together!

For a fun way to document the trip, I created a t-shirt for Ella to wear in each new state we drove through on our way out and back. It was fun taking pictures at each stop in a new state. I can't wait to make a book about the trip using the shirt pictures as well as the scrapbook the trip, and finally use all of these shirts along with other shirts I have made for her for special days and create a small t-shirt quilt for her.

The shirts were very simple to make. I printed out a picture of each state in black and white from online in the size I wanted for the shirt. I found a scrap of fabric to fit each state, used fusible interfacing on each scrap,traced the state backwards, cut out the state, removed the paper backing, ironed on the state and then used a tight stitch to stitch around the edge of each state. I love how they turned out, I did 7 states in about 30 minutes. 7 new shirts in a half hour! Not too shabby!

Enjoy the pics! And come back and visit.. I will be posting about all of the fun things we have been doing around our house since returning from our east coast trip in early July. That's right people.. coast to coast in the car this summer.. with a dog and a toddler! woohoo!

Minnesota

Iowa

Nebraska

Nebraska

Utah

Nevada

South Dakota

Happy Traveling!