Something Old, New, Borrowed...and Green!

Hello, Readers! I am very excited tonight to show you the Before and Afters of our living room! Though the post's title usually is in reference to weddings, no one is getting married. However, it still applies to our ever-new living room.

We moved into our happy abode at the end of May. For about a month and a half it looked like this.




Yikes



The stark white walls were quite white. Against the darker hues of some of our furnishings, the room felt very disjointed. You will also notice that for a while we had not one, but TWO coffee tables. That was my fault. Before the roomies moved in (I was the first in the house), I had begun an 1000-piece puzzle of the Taj Mahal on the coffee table I was contributing to the home furnishing. When the others moved in, I was still working on the puzzle, which forced the other furniture to awkwardly inhabit the room around the puzzled table. I eventually gave it up because [1] it was too depressing to work on a wicked hard puzzle by myself and [2] we wanted to paint and make this house a home!

Here are a few more "befores":





We decided to go with green on the walls, we thought it would be a nice contrast to the various red tones that thus far inhabited the room. Since the dining room flows into the living room, we planned for the "withered moss" hue we picked out cover those walls as well.

After starting painting in the dining room, we quickly discovered that the paint supply we initially purchased was not going to cover all of our walls. We began to consider our options: How far can we stretch this paint (we are all thrifty-minded blokes)? How much more do you think we need? Do we even like this color?? Who wants to go out and buy more?

Simultaneously, one roommate and I had the idea of changing up the color for the living room. While we very much liked our friend, Withered Moss, we wondered if we would create a similar effect with the uniform green walls as the previously white walls we were covering. We decided to bring in a second color, "Fennel Sprout", one of the sibling colors on the Withered Moss's color sample (all paint was courtesy of Lowe's). So, what we ended up with was a very nice, though subtle, color contrast in the walls, which you can see in the following picture.



Watching paint dry: Withered Moss on the left; Fennel Sprout on the upper right



Again: Fennel Sprout on left; Withered Moss on right

The fun didn't end once the paint was dry and we got all of the furniture back in place. We were incredibly happy with the way the wall color turned out and we slowly have been accessorizing and making new improvements to the room. Tonight, we put what I think is the "finishing touch" on the living room by hanging curtains. My roommate found some lovely, sheer curtains for 15% off at Kohl's (or something like that). I picked up a curtain rod from Home Depot and then we went to town hanging the curtains.

Window: Before Curtains



Window: After curtains

You'll notice another difference between this picture and one from above: The updated couch with the pillows that I shared with you in my post yesterday. Big and exciting improvements, indeed!

Curtain detail

We probably will continue to add new things, switch stuff around, etc., as time goes on. However, for now, this is our living room in all of its glory. As I said above, we lurve it A LOT!



Living room facing front of the house



Living room facing side/back. Plus the fireplace we probs won't ever use.

We have thoroughly enjoyed lounging in the new room, patting ourselves on the back and sighing with happiness at the new space. Needless to say, we can't wait to start entertaining!