It’s been a little crazy over here for the last couple of weeks. Thankfully, this weekend has been uneventful and I am gorging myself on Thin Mints while watching some March Madness and catching up on some sleep. I just didn’t want you to develop abandonment issues with my absence. So here is some fun stuff that has been going on in our living room.
Over the last couple of months, Scott and I have been collecting items to update our living room. This room has come a long way from when we first moved in, but other than some new furniture a couple years ago, this room has been a little neglected. The poor girl just wanted some nice things.
So, when we ventured to Ikea a couple months ago, we came across some new pillow cases and some Ribba frames. I planned to put some calendar pages in the frames from a Charley Harper calendar I found online for $5!
I’ve been holding out for those dang Ribba frames for months! We decided to hang a couple in the living room along with the “tree” that was hanging in the kitchen:
We settled on the area above the TV to hang these. It’s one of those awkward spaces that you can’t hang anything too crazy or it will freak your eyes out while trying to watch movies (we’re easily distracted). So a map or an iSpy photo was out of the question. I’ve always hated those brown boxes above the TV, but it was better than nothing, so I just shot them evil glares every time we turned on the boob tube.
Now, it looks a LOT better and that space above the TV is filled out a little more.
Oh, and I will mention that the brown walls will have to go. There are still little kid hand smears all over the bottom third of the walls. So, a paint job is mandatory. We are hoping to lighten it up but are still undecided on a color. I think we are leaning more towards a light gray/brown. You can’t really tell from the photo above, but the walls are currently a more yellowy/brown.
Ok, back to more fancy stuff. We also decided that our wedding photo on the opposite wall just looked a little small for that space. It’s a huge photo, but it just looked tiny. We thought about making it a collage wall … but let’s be real here … we don’t have kids. It would just be a bunch of photos of ourselves or random ones we took. So, we nixed that idea for now. We brought back an old flower photo and slapped a map of Hawaii up there. It’s actually pretty awesome!
Below is a close-up of the Hawaii map. It’s not perfect, but we are thinking that we’ll eventually frame a black and white engineering photo print in there. Until then, Hawaii it is!
Meanwhile, our wedding photo was moved into the dining room above our record table.
It’s kinda funny, but our painted record player actually matches *exactly* to the reddish mat in the photo. Are we good or what?! You can see the reddish color on the drawer of the record table that we painted.
Since we are in the dining room, I’ll show you the other two Ribba frames. We hung these where the “tree” used to be and are loving the extra whimsy that they bring. The birds in the photos are a unintentional nod to the birds in the dining room. We realized this only after everything was hung. Ha!
I’m loving them. I also love that for four photo frames and photos it cost us $45. Plus I have 8 other photos from the calendar that I can switch out whenever I feel like a change. Calendar photos are the way to go!
Since I tend to make a mess in the kitchen and slosh water all over the place, we really needed to bring back a rug in front of the sink. I remembered our green striped one from our apartment days and dug it out of a box. It totally fits in. I love when stuff like that happens.
Back in the living room we used to have this brown fabric, ruffled valence. Scott called it “the turd above the windows”. It was pretty ugly. It came with the house when we moved in and we have never had the chance to replace it with anything. That was until World Market was having a super sale on their curtains! We went with these nautical, jute translucent-ish ones with tabs on the top. They are perfect!
Here is a before and after:
The only problem is the curtain rod rack that the “turd” was hiding is actually one of those old ones that used to hold long vertical blinds. Bleh. We are already thinking of new curtain rod ideas. There is a lot going on up there right now.
You can also see that we got a rug in there too! It’s a 100% wool rug from RugsUSA that was on clearance. We liked how it looked a lot like coral. The new pillow cases are from Ikea for $5 a piece. How awesome is that?! I couldn’t even make them myself for that cheap and they’re even zippered. Holla!
Ok. Are you still with me? Do you need a Girl Scout cookie break? I’ll wait if you want to go grab a couple. My teeth are currently black from the Thin Mints. Judgement-free zone here people.
Our last little addition to the house is a recap book from our Kitchen Remodel. We got a coupon in the mail from Discover for a free 20-page, hardcover book from Shutterfly. Since Scott already thinks our house features too many photos of us, we opted for a before and after book of our remodeling fun … rather than just another book of our faces. We know what we look like. 🙂
So, those are some of the cool new things we have around the house. Once we get the music room finished up we are (or at least I am) hoping to start painting the living room. That will really make a difference. I’m so pumped.
Anyway, that’s it from our side of the street. Since the weather is warming up we are all about being outside and firing up the grill. It’s making my mouth water just thinking about it. Let me know if you have any cool new stuff for your house … or if you’re just digging the warmer weather. I can’t wait to get our garden planted here soon!
– Allie
SCOTT and ALLIE BUY A HOUSE 