Tour of the New Home: Livingroom!

We've made it through the front room (study/ exercise room), Liliana's playroom, kitchen, and dining room.  Today is the most important room of any house (in my opinion):

THE LIVING ROOM!

The livingroom has BY FAR been the priciest and the most work to make it in to something I like.  While we're still not completely done with it, it's definitely at a point where it'll look like this for a long time to come.  I am SO happy with it and spend a great deal of time in this room, whether I'm on the computer, reading a book, playing with Liliana, or most importantly, snuggling with Evan after he's home from a LONG day of work.

Before:

During:

This is what it looked like after we moved all our furniture in.  But I would sit in this room, and honestly, feel unhappy!  We bought the TV stand at Target for about $100 bucks and it looks wonderful.  But still ... it's crazy sounding, but I knew something just wasn't right.  Evan came inside one afternoon after staining the deck and just knew I wasn't feeling right about the room ... he asked me in that sweet, yet "oh no" voice: "What's wrong?"  Before we knew it, we had plans to paint this room.  

BUT that's the problem of an open concept house ... we didn't have to paint THIS room alone, but the livingroom, dining room, AND kitchen! Joy!

 I decided the color they had on the walls looked remarkably similar to poop mud.  And weirdly enough, that wasn't too appealing!

Therefore, we lightened the WHOLE area ... see the big difference?  Color: Oat Straw from Behr.

SO, after we painted the walls, I bought cushions for the couches, moved the rug to the dining room, and bought a new rug for the living room for an awesome price on Overstock.com.  The finished product?

After:

 YAY!  Much brighter and much more inviting!

 YES, we painted the brick wall as well.  And you know what?  It wasn't bad AT ALL like I anticipated.  It would take one person about 3 hours if I had to guess.

The new carpet and cushions.  I went for a carpet with much less color on it and I think that also helped to brighten the room.  I also bought cushions with less color on them too.  Bed Bath & Beyond had an AMAZING selection of cushions.  Although they were EXPENSIVE, they make a huge difference.

 My favorite corner of the house.  I don't know why I like it so much ... it just has a lot of personality, especially the two Puerto Rican works of art.

 Our wonderful friend gave us this picture (that she took) and frame as a good-bye gift. 

It's BY FAR my favorite item in the house!

 My new cushions! LOVE them! 

(even though they were about 20 bucks a piece, yikes)

My favorite cushion of them all ... love birds on the love seat.

There's the livingroom!  We're officially done with the downstairs of the house!  

Next: Liliana's nursery!