Living Area Re-Do

Describing a home layout is a little difficult unless you have actually been in a house, so I will do my best.  

We bought this home because there are so many angles; the rooms are not just square boxes.  This makes the home interesting, but kind of difficult to "stage."  When we moved in, I had the entertainment center on the wall that now has pictures.  That door is the door to our bedroom.  To the left of the pictures is our dining room.

Basically all that I did in the living room was repaint the walls, rearrange the furniture, and made new curtains and pillow covers.  I will be making white slipcovers for the couch and chair next.

This is the view of the living room from the couch and big chair.  I painted the canvases above the fireplace.  It is hard to see, but they are just blue (the same blue that is in the dining room) with 2 fleur de lis on them.  I also painted the vase that green color and put fake flowers in it to pull the red from the Yuengling poster.  The lamp is an old yucky lamp that I spray painted black and bought a new lamp shade for.  The bird on top of the entertainment center also got a coat of blue paint.

On the other side of the entertainment center is the hallway to the kids' bedrooms and bathroom.  That wall is a collection of all Bryan's airplane pictures.  That is our front door at the end.  On that cool angled wall is my sewing "room."  I have 3 long shelves, I guess about 6-7 feet long, my sewing table and some plastic storage bins underneath. We also mounted lights under the bottom shelf so I can see better when I sew. Oh, and the sewing "room" wall is painted the same color green as the kitchen.

The kitchen got a nice new light green coat of paint, Bryan hung the nice small shelves for me, and I made a new valance.  The valance is a three tier, ruffled valance made from blue, green, and a floral fabric.  (This picture is taken from the dining area.)

Last but not least, is the room that took the most time.  Our dining room got a coat of blue paint and then I stenciled a creme color on top.  It creates a wallpaper effect but for much less money and if someone moves in and hates it, they don't have to strip off wallpaper!  It wasn't a hard project, but it took 2 1/2 days to do the stencil alone.

 A close-up of my 3 tier blue ruffled valance and two pillows.  The floral is the same fabric in the kitchen.  It is the shape of a stop sign and has a cuddly minky fabric on the back.

Now, how much did this project cost us?  I don't have a definite figure, but I can tell you that I bought 3 gallons of paint at $20 a gallon.  The stencil was gifted to me.  The stencil paint cost about $5.  The shelves cost around $100.  (Shelves btw, are funny.  The Shelves themselves are cheap but they get you on the brackets!)  The fabric was my big ticket item.  The floral is a custom order upholstery fabric that I got for $50 (and that was half price off!  $25 for 2 yards).  The blue fabric was only like $4 a yard but I bought a whole bolt of it (I think that is like 7 yards).  The green fabric was also pretty cheap around $6 a yard and I only bought 2 or 3 yards.  I have used just about every inch of the fabric!  So I believe that is around $270. The project is worth so much more than that!  Before, the living room just didn't feel right and my sewing area was a wreck since I only had the table and plastic drawers.  It is all so comfortable now.  We have gained seating with the window seat (it had awful miniblinds before) and the fireplace hearth.  And the house will show that much better when we have to sell. But I love this house so much, I am not looking forward to selling anytime soon.

A great big thank you to my friend Sarah Pena for helping design my space.  There were so  many times when she question my color choices and kept me on track!  Anyone in the New Orleans area that needs help designing the home, Sarah is a very affordable choice!