Living Room Update

I've decided to re-do our living room ala Young House Love. They love everything to be "light and airy" and my living room was everything but. With black furniture, a dark brown sofa, dark brown walls, and black picture frames, it was starting to get a little cave-like. So I headed down to Sherwin-Williams and grabbed a gallon of paint the next shade lighter from the current color. I painted three walls the light color and left the dark on the fireplace wall as an accent. I also removed Ben's media center and relegated it to the garage. Remember when our living room was featured in DIY Magazine's "He Said, She Said" column?

Well, I am trying to follow John and Sherry's advice, but on a budget.  Instead of investing the time and money into built-in's,  I moved our two black ladder bookcases that used to be on the wall behind the couch to the wall flanking the fireplace. I had previously painted the fireplace brick white and the brass insert black. I added some Ikea baskets to the shelves and am in the process of getting rid of the DVD racks. We NEVER watch the DVD's anyway. It's only DVR and Netflix for us these days!  I moved the Pottery Barn cork board to the laundry room and found a new home for the blue chair.  I also am going to down-size the Flor tile rug, since a certain little puppy likes to make messes when we are gone.

Here are a couple "before" shots.   The one on the top shows the previous orientation of the ladder shelves, along with the new couch and Flor tile rug.  The bottom one shows the old brick fireplace, DVD racks, and baker's rack tv cabinet.

I'm dying to show you all the after photos, but I am not done yet.  I need a couple more weeks to finish up the final touches.  You'll just have to wait in anticipation until then! :)

Ikea Hacker

I'm obsessed with a new blog called Ikea Hacker. It's where readers post projects they've done that use Ikea products in a different way. I'm in love with the computer/ cookbook stand made from shelving brackets and kitchen cabinet pulls. I also really liked the garbage bag holder to hang on the cabinet door under the sink. These seemed like simple projects I could do. Of course I would love to create built-ins with Billy bookcases, but that seems so involved and time consuming. I'm all about instant gratification!

I went to Ikea tonight with my mom. It was her very first time being there, so of course we spent 4 hours perusing all the little vignettes and oohhing and awwing over the beautiful kitchens and scoffing at the cheap feeling dressers. I knew I wanted to try one of the hacks, so I picked up a Kvarta clock to the tune of $5.99. Here is the project I plan to do. I'll let you know how it turns out!