Every time we've moved, there has been one thing that's kept me sane...adding touches of "me" to the space we live in.
Making our house homey hasn't always been on the top of my priority list, but it's quickly moving there now. It's important, I think, to fill a home with things that mean something to your family. For me, that's meant dabbling in ways to bless our house and scratch that creative itch at the same time.
You might remember our ugly living room.
Gosh, I hated this room. The dark, dark walls and dark, dark carpet just made me cranky. So, for Christmas, I decided to get serious about re-doing this room.
I was going to wait until it was "all finished" to blog about it, but considering we're on a spending freeze thanks to Dave Ramsey, I just don't want to wait that long. So, I'll share what we've done so far...
First, we painted the walls:
Instantly, I liked the room better...but the hunter green carpet still needed to go. Thankfully, I have a birthday in December so guess what I asked for?
Let me just say that this is NOT the floor I expected to get. I thought we'd go with a dark wood floor like we did in our Colorado house. I loved the way that looked, but for some reason, we fell in love with a hickory floor and it was a lot lighter than I had intended.
As is customary in our home renovations, we put our kids to work:
They actually had blast cutting up the carpet and hauling it out.
No, really. They did.
Next, we put down the underlayment and went to work on the floor.
I won't tell you where we bought the floor (Lumber Liquidators) or that we ended up having to return a box and a half of defective product or that they charged us a restocking fee to return that box of defective product. Or that I don't think anyone should ever go to Lumber Liquidators that place if they can help it.
On my birthday, we had the new floor installed...and I instantly fell in love.
Eventually, we'll move this furniture out of here (though I don't know where we'll go with it because I know from the hole in the wall it does NOT fit in our lower level...) but for now, this is what we have.
The white chairs were my grandma's. They have little pink flowers on them, but I kind of love them anyway. I covered them both with favorite blankets and they do me just fine.
Of course, I'd love new tile and lighting around the fireplace and the mantle is always changing, but I'm loving pulling in the natural elements like my dad's handmade candle stick and my hand-painted sign. That stained wood with white and wicker and twine is just working for me.
This was a sign I painted for my Home Blessings Class at Big Picture. This is a piece of maple my dad used to teach me to plane, sand and route...and I LOVE the way it turned out.
I still need a rug, window treatments and artwork on the walls, but for now, I've settled in to the vast improvement and am so thankful we no longer call this room "The Green Room."
Little by little, I'll make it a home...
