Living Room Update

Time to show the living room a little love! Along with my recent updates to our dining room (described here and here), I also made a few adjustments to our living room. It definitely did not look like much before:

Living Room Way Before

This was very shortly after we moved in – we did not have a lot of furniture, and the living room was a very sad place for a while. Here it is a little while later, getting just a little better:

Living Room Before

Ok, not really much better at all, but at least two people can sit down. Luckily after our wedding we were able to combine a bunch of Crate & Barrel gift cards and return credits and buy an awesome couch – the only problem was it took for-ev-er to be delivered. Anyway, that was last Christmas and after that, I pretty much did nothing else to this room.

Until recently. I finally got around to putting up some curtains (with my wonderful parents’ help), and although it wasn’t my original plan, I also swapped rugs with the dining room and the new rug makes me very happy. So without further ado, here are the after photos.

Living Room After

 

Living Room After

Also in case you didn’t notice in the photo above, Sebastian really likes the new rug:

This rug must contain catnip

He was literally rolling around and army crawling across the rug, like it was a pool full of catnip and he was swimming in it. Such a weirdo.

Anyway, so that’s our living room. Of course, these photos were taken when my fall decorations were still up, so it looks decidedly more Christmas-y now (as seen in yesterday’s post). Also, I realize the curtains are hanging a few inches above the floor, which looks kind of weird. The curtains I bought weren’t quite long enough, so I plan to add a strip of colored fabric to the bottom of them at some point in the future.

Overall it’s quite an improvement though, amiright?

Dining Room Update

As I mentioned before, we have lived in our current house for about a year and a half. It was really fun when we first moved in to organize and decorate everything, but once it got to a certain livable point, I kinda ran out of steam. There were still a few things missing, more that needed to be done, but I had started a new job and life just got in the way of making much progress.

I think what finally spurred me into action to get back into a decorating kick was my book club. I volunteered to host for the month of October, and then realized that I didn’t have any window treatments in the living or dining room (or any room, for that matter), not to mention my “dining table” was a cheap-o IKEA purchase that didn’t really seat more than two people.  So I knew I had some work to do.

Dining Room with tiny IKEA table

I had been thinking of upgrading our dining table for a while, so I kind of had an idea of what I wanted. One of the first places I looked was Crate & Barrel. Freakin love that store. We registered there for our wedding, so by the time we added up all our gift cards and duplicate-item-returns, we were able to buy a living room sofa for 66% off. Since the dining room is right next to the living room (basically the same room actually) I knew that a C&B table would go well with our C&B sofa. And C&B even had exactly the type of table I was looking for (pedestal with a leaf), in the right color (black), for a very reasonable price ($500).

Avalon Table - C&B

The kicker was that the chairs that went with the table were identical to the IKEA dining chairs I already had. And the IKEA chairs were less than half the price of the C&B chairs. So I figured I could save some serious money by buying a couple more IKEA chairs, and no one would know the difference.

C&B Chair

IKEA Chair

So I showed the table to Jon, and he was on board (as much as a guy can be on board with any home decorating decision), so I was ready to purchase – but then we hit a snag. The C&B table was on back order and wouldn’t be available until mid-November (keep in mind I was aiming for this update to be complete for my late-October book club). So that was a bummer, but I didn’t see a way around it, so I was still going to make the purchase and just wait. But then Pinterest came through for me.

Do you know Pinterest? If you are a female, and have any time at all to kill ever (or even if you don’t), you should check it out. Let me know if you need an invite. It’s super fun and addicting. Anyway, someone happened to post a photo of a dining table that looked a lot like my C&B table, but what caught my eye was the price – $400. The only problem was, it was brown. But I figured I’d check it out and see if they had a black one. The table was from Pier 1 (which incidentally, we actually have quite a few Pier 1 items already in our house as well). After a quick search on the website, I discovered that not only was the table available in black, but it was also in stock at our local store! Did I mention it was $100 cheaper? Score!

Ronan Table - Pier 1

Needless to say, it was a no-brainer. My lovely parents met me at Pier 1 after work and helped me haul the table home and put it together. We also did some serious curtain-hanging, but that’s a story for another day. I will also share some after pics of the dining room (and living room) soon, but there is one more piece I am waiting for to get the final “after.” (Spoiler alert – it’s a rug, and it’s being delivered today. Sweet!) All in all though I am very happy with my dining room up date (and the living room update which I will share soon). Pinterest FTW!

Psst – If you’re interested in any of these items, the photos are links, so check ’em out. The Ronan table is even on sale for $350 now (kinda wish I hadn’t seen that)!