Project: Refresh Living Room

When we moved into our house more than three years ago, it was pretty “done.” All the popcorn had been removed from ceilings, the walls painted, new granite in the kitchen, etc. We did a kitchen renovation a year ago, but that’s about it, partly because the house doesn’t need much and partly because we’re thinking about moving again (which is a story for another day).

Last fall we created a cozy nook off our dining room, which is my favorite part of the house, style-wise. I painted a teal-ish accent wall, we got some comfortable chairs and a gorgeous lamp, and it is a great place to sit and read the paper. It feels really… pulled together.

That’s a feeling that has been lacking in our living room. We have the TV in there and a couch and loveseat. There’s also a console table that has two small lamps on it, a large bookshelf thing, and a few odds and ends. We spend a decent amount of time in there, mostly watching TV, but it has been sort of neglected. I have been on a kick to get an area rug for in there and have tossed around the idea of painting a wall or two. But Mike hasn’t been super keen on it, so “Project: Refresh Living Room” has just been languishing on my list.

Until today!

I realized a couple of weeks ago that we had some large frames at our old house that were just collecting dust in the garage. They’d look perfect on a bare wall of the living room, and would give me a place to display some of the awesome pictures Mike has taken on our various vacations. So today I hauled myself over to the old house, collected them, dusted them thoroughly and cleaned the glass inside and out, and took on the difficult task of doing all the math required to hang them all (evenly spaced from each other, level at the tops, at a point lower than the inset speakers on that particular wall). It was painstaking, but between my tape measure, calculator, pencil, masking tape, and level, it worked!

I have to pick pictures still, and have them printed and put them into the frames, but even as-is, it’s a huge improvement. I’m so proud of my picture-hanging prowess!