Living Room Makeover

A post not about adoption ;)

I love our 1950s ranch style house! I love it. I love it. I love it: quirky pink tile bathroom, beautiful wooden floors, picture frame paneling, sun drenched from all of our large windows... but, I have had a lot of issues designing our living room because it is long and skinny (15'x30'ish)

When we first viewed the home it was set up like this: 4 individual spaces (the fourth is the piano area but you can't see that in these photos)

Looking into the living room: first you see the sitting nook, the living area, then a table/vignette space

The sitting nook

The living area looking out onto the large porch

We liked this set up a lot but we didn't have the right furniture for it or the rugs or the ability to play with our daughter in this space. We did follow their basic set up of "sectioning" off the room

After living here for a while I got a little tired of the living room being soooo gray! If you know me, you know I need color. And pardon the mess I'm the mom of a TODDLER! There will be messes!

 We set about our redo of the living room: I started off the totally sane way of photoshopping the whole living room. I turned the couch gray (we physically switched the sofas though) added in extra pics and covered the pillows with bright fabric.

My re-work of the living area

My re-work of the play space

After struggling with rug finding and buying at least two (I can't remember how many now) we realized that we would have to have a 9x12 rug or a 5x7. 8x10 just didn't work in this space. We selected the "Throndale" rug in 5x7

We found this rug at Home Depot for a great price ($100)

Our sofa is the Karlstad from Ikea. We were able to purchase a new cover for the sofa for $150

Next, I needed a large piece of art the span the large wall and awkward size allotment needed to work on our paneled walls. Art is expensive so I bought a piece of birch wood and painted it with paint from our garage and mounted it on some 1x2 pine wood. The painting cost about $12 plus time. I call it "Home"

Art sitting behind the sofa. I bought fabric to re-make our pillows for $20

The next issue was figuring out how to mount it since the moulding sticks out half an inch from the wall. After much discussion I decided to nail into the raised part of the moulding and mounted it like that.

So.... duh, duh, duh, DUHHHNNNN, DONE!!!!

The big reveal!!!!

Our "new" space is much more inviting and doesn't feel like a long hallway anymore. 

I recovered the floral pillow on the couch and painted the lamp and made the lampshade. The painting looks great and I love how it anchors that whole wall!

These seating areas are much more inviting. I recovered the floral pillows and the blue one. I also made the funky Texas flag pillow siting on the brown chair. By placing the chair on the other side of the back door I bridged the two halves of the room (well, that was what I going for at least)

Looking towards the play area. The spaces work much better together now.

We "tried" to build her shelves but ended up buying some from Ikea. There is plenty of space now for her puzzles, puppets, instruments, and such.

For now this is her reading nook. I hope to find a piano soon to put on this wall. The rocking chair and doll crib were mine when I was little. I made the floor cushions.

My serious girl hard at work. We bought the Don Quixote painting while we were in Puerto Rico and her Noah's ark set is from Uganda. I bought the purple storage pieces at Ikea and the heart ones at Target. 

My next projects include finding more art for our living room and making a dining room table. I was inspired by these portraits in the Nordstrom's women's lounge

I'd like to paint a portrait but I've only ever painted one. 

Painting I did inspired by art seen in Hitchock's Rope

 I also want to build a long skinny table like this one that I saw at Antropologie

Sorry for the blur... I was shopping with a cranky toddler :)

What do you think of my re-do? What projects are you working on?

And don't worry, I didn't forget!

Cherokee lesson:
English:      home

Cherokee:  

Phonetic:    O we nv sv

As in: Our home is ready for you baby Martin! Come home soon!

All In!

As we continue to wait and wait and wait for our certification process to be complete I wanted to share some things with you.

Waiting is hard. I think all of us have had to do it in some form or manner. I've had to do a lot of waiting in my life: waiting through infertility, waiting to see the sun through a Pittsburgh winter, waiting to get to move home to Texas. I've waited a lot and tend to be pretty good at it but for some reason this waiting was seeming really easy (not like cake-walk easy but only cry or get emotional once or twice a week easy)

But I think it is about to get harder.

Why?

Because I'm all in, every breathe I have I'm going to be praying for mountains to move. Every moment I am dedicated to praying my child through, praying the birth family through. I have drawn my circle and am standing here. I will not be shaken.

The Bible says that if we tell the mountains to move that they will move. Right here, right now, and with every word I can muster I'm telling mountains to move, in Jesus name. I'm praying for my child to not be away from me for one more day than he or she has to. I'm praying that their situation is only as hard as it has to be to bring them to me. I'm praying that God is surrounding my child with my love, my voice, my smell so that when my son or daughter is placed in my arms they are home.

Home is not a building, the same way that Church is not a building. Home and Church both are lived out through the people that occupy the buildings (or tents or teepees or wigwams or log cabins)

Cherokee lesson (I thought that this would be fitting for today's post): igatseliga (ih-gah-tse-lih-gah) ᎢᎦᏤᎵᎦ  this means "we belong to each other"

We belong to each other. I belong to my child and my child belongs to me: we belong together. Therefore I will travel where ever I need, move any obstacle in my way, scale what needs to be scaled all to wrap my child in my arms and say "I'm here. Gvgeyuhi (I love you). I will not leave you, baby Martin."