Living with the Reno

She is all ours. Now what?  We move in. Fast and furious.  We decided to move in and then start tackling all of the projects that needed to be done.  Let's start with the living room.  Right when we walked in the front door the fireplace (so happy about) and bookshelves were staring at us and they were just begging for a face lift.  I knew before we started the moving process that I wanted to paint the room, fireplace, and bookshelves right away.  We took a million pictures during our walk-through and inspection - so I had a lot to refer to while we were waiting to move in.  I pinned my little heart out on Pinterest so I would already have the paint colors picked out and ready to go.  I had help in town for the week and we wanted to get as much done as possible.

So that is our little gem of a living room. She is actually really cozy. I love how the original wood creaks under my feet as I walk. I love the wall of windows that face the street (great for people watching). I love the wood burning fireplace. I love the potential that is here. Okay, that was a nice moment. Now for the hard work. We immediately started painting the walls, trim, trim, and more trim.

Our living room paint color is Benjamin Moore Moonshine.  We got it color matched in Behr at Home Depot.  Please notice that YES there is about an inch gap between the ceiling and wall.  So we must put crown molding up.  Several of the rooms are like this in the house - we are thinking that the previous owner prepped it for crown molding, but never quite got there.  That's okay - we got this! 

Side note - Hubby built that table out of the fence gate we took down in the backyard and a door that the previous owner left in the garage. A perfect example of how we work : I come up with the idea and he makes it come to life!

We added the crown molding! She feels a little more complete now. Your welcome - living room.  After dressing up the ceiling/walls, we are moving on to the book cases.  I think these are such a great feature in this house - feels very original.  From all my "pinteresting" I decided that I wanted to paint the back wall of the book cases.  Our bedroom (more on that another day) is a darker shade of gray and I used that paint for the back walls.  That way they would not fade into the living room wall color.  LOVE how they turned out and I am now in the process of decorating them.

We waited, waited, waited, waited, and waited.  Oh and we waited some more for our shutters to come in and cover our wall of windows.  Despite having to wait for what felt like an eternity, we are so very happy with them.  They totally change the feel of the living room.  When we walk into the living room from the back of the house - it looks like a different space.  My pictures and words do not capture what an impact these make on our space.  I hear they are pretty good for re-sale too (sa-weeeeet)!  Rosie Posie loves them too - she will rest her head on the bottom slat and look outside for hours.  DO NOT think you can walk on our street and get away with it!

The wood burning fireplace got a little face lift with white paint that we used for trim, just for the time-being.  We plan on tiling it with marble subway tile at some point.

(Pre- paint/window coverings)

Most of our furniture we have had for a while.  I am constantly changing rugs, pillows, lamps, and candles out.  The striped rug - I have already moved to another room and replaced it with a new one in here (too much traffic in this room to have a rug with any inch of white on it..).  Our couches are actually from Hubby's late grandmother.  Some days I LOVE them and other days I look at them and want them out immediately.  With one of them being a sleeper sofa - it is hard to give that up (and to fork out the money for a new one), and just for the plain fact that I am a HUGE fan of anything mustard yellow - I think they will stick around a little bit. Funny that Murphy made it into both of those pictures and they were taken months apart - silly dog!

 

I am slightly obsessed with my "golden" buck on the wall.  The skull and horns are on behalf of my dad (I warned him that I would be altering it when he gave it to me) and I think it adds a touch of masculinity to the room - in a girly way (does that make sense?!).  We will continue to add to the "M" wall as we go. 

We are slowly getting there, and before you know it - I will change something up! It's just what I do.  Come back for more room updates!

{All images by Natalie Monk for Rosie Posie and Home}