Home Tour: Living Room

Here are the before pictures of our living room. The previous owner had decorated the house nicely, we just have a different style.  Her style was much more rustic, which is very popular in New Mexico. She also used lots of different paint colors throughout the house.  There were three different greens just in the living room.  She's a real estate agent so she was good at staging the house.

 

Here are the after pictures. We special ordered our charcoal grey microfiber L-shaped sectional from American Home, a local furniture store. Although they are popular in the rest of the country, they don't have grey couches like that around here. Everything tends to be brown and overstuffed. The three pillows came with the couch and we were able to pick out the material. 

We also found our TV stand at American Home. Unlike our old furniture it's solid wood with tongue and groove joints. We liked this one because the cabinets and drawers all close so the DVD player isn't out in the open. Quentin occasionally opens the drawers but hasn't opened the cabinets because you have to put some effort into it if you're a toddler. You could tie all the pulls together if this was a problem. It's child friendly and good looking.  The TV is a LG 55" and can convert regular TV into 3-D.  Albert had to restrain himself and not get the 65".

We bought grey blinds to cover the windows at Lowes. The sun is super intense in the mornings and was blinding at the table during breakfast. They also keep out extra heat in the summer so we don't have to use the A/C as much. They don't have any strings to open them, you just lift them up or pull them down so no worries about kids hurting themselves.

 

The black ottoman is from Overstock and we love it.  Originally we bought a coffee table, but realized Quentin was at the stage where he was just going to ruin it so we bought this instead, which has proven to be much more practical.  It's soft so we don't have to worry about Quentin hurting himself on it and he keeps some of his toys in it so we don't have toys all over the place.

We originally planned on painting the walls grey like we did at our condo, but the paint ended up being more blue than grey even though it looked grey on the paint sample and is called Nimbus Grey from Benjamin Moore.  We decided that we like the blue and we're happy with it since we otherwise would have no color at all in the house.  Besides they said on HGTV the other day that you can never go wrong painting a room blue :)  We painted the fireplace a darker blue called Smokestack Grey also from Benjamin Moore. 

We used our old rug we bought from IKEA in VA.   The peace pillow was 70% off at Target since it's considered a holiday item and the throw blanket was a Christmas gift from Albert's parents.

We bought the wreath and vases at Target and Home Depot for 50-70% off because they were holiday decorations.  I don't think they look particularly holiday-ish so I'm keeping them up year round.  My friend Amy gave me the camel clock in 2004 or 2005 and I won the picture of the globe in a giveaway a few years ago, but never had the opportunity to display it.

We found the art work by the TV at World Market on Black Friday 1/2 off and the two green ottomans were 1/2 off the day after Christmas at Target because they were considered holiday items.  

We bought the computer hutch on Craigslist.  It's 100% oak and 100% heavy.  We keep our desk top computer, printer, and office supplies in it.  It's great at keeping Quentin's little hands away from those things he shouldn't touch.