Home Sweet Home Improvement: Before and After

Like the master bedroom (and most of the house, actually), the living room was a blank slate when we moved in - white walls, white molding, and whitish tile on the floor.

I know I've mentioned before that when we were newlyweds, we combined our random assortment of furniture and we did the best we could with what we had. Here's a picture of our living room from the MLS when we put it on the market

This room has always been awkward to me because of the layout of the room - a long rectangle with windows along one wall, the open doorway leading to the hallway on the second long wall, the front door along one of the short walls and the living room opens into another room so that it's missing the fourth wall. (Make sense or have I lost you?) Also, with the set-up above there was a lot of dead space, which is bad when you live in a tiny house!

Anyway, after much re-arranging, we finally decided that the room needed a focal point/wall, face-to-face seating (versus the L-shaped seating arrangement seen in the picture above), and some sort of entry table to keep miscellaneous items.

So here's what we did to break up the space and make it more functional for us:

To keep the small living room feeling as light and airy as possible, I chose a color palette that was fairly light (white, gray, yellow and pops of navy blue). Originally we bought a blue sofa since we thought a darker color would be more practical with a toddler and a black dog...but I hated it. So I scored a sweet deal on an Ikea slipcovered couch on Craigslist, which is a perfect compromise between style and function. I get the white couch I really wanted and since it's slipcovered, it's easy to keep clean too.

{the view from the front door into the living room}

I found a cheap (and ugly!) console table off of Craigslist and then made a skirted console table cover. (I winged it, but I've since found a tutorial online that I wish I would have followed.) The console table functions as our holding station for our everyday items - keys, purse, shoes (stored under the table) and mail.

I was perusing a used furniture store looking for side tables when I stumbled upon this electric fireplace. It was the right scale for the room and I thought it would make the perfect focal point for this wall. (Plus, I really wanted somewhere to hang our stockings!) It took some convincing, but I finally got Andrew on board. Originally it had a dark wood stain, which I didn't like in this room. I sanded, primed and painted it the same white as the rest of the moldings. Also, with the chairs flanking the fireplace and across from the couch, I finally got face-to-face seating in the living room. And that makes me a happy girl!

Much like the bedroom curtain, I used white Ikea curtain panels and painted on a chevron design using some leftover wall paint I already owned. My only expense was $6 on more painter's tape. Score!

{view from the family room into the living room}

{for some reason, I am obsessed with tripod tables}

{this large nautical map was the inspiration for the color palette for the living room}

I still have a few projects to complete for the living room, namely styling the coffee table (which most likely won't happen anytime soon with a toddler living in the house) and installing canned lighting to finally give the room overhead lighting.

Source Info:

White couch - Ikea (but I scored it for a steal on Craigslist)

Wicker chairs - Ikea

Dwell Studio throw pillows - Etsy

Flower throw pillow - Etsy

Tripod table - World Market (no longer available, but this one's similar)

Fireplace - used furniture store

Coffee table - Ballard Designs

Side table - gifted from my parents

Lamp on side table - Ikea

Console table - Craigslist score

Fabric for console table - Joann's