The Living Room

Hubbin bought this house before we met, so this was “decorated” bachelor style.  This house has awesome potential, but was going nowhere fast.  I have spent much of the last 5 years begging him to let me paint the trim.  No dice.  Not at any point in time.  He outwardly refused.  Here’s a picture of the living room in 2008:

I begged and pleaded, but he was determined that we wouldn’t paint the trim.  I sighed loudly while looking through pictures and magazines, longing for the day I lived in a home that didn’t have offensive trim.  He wouldn’t budge.  I gave up, focusing on the idea that one day, dark trim would be back in.  And I waited.  And waited.

And then I found Pinterest.  More importantly, however, I found this post. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?  It forced me to launch yet another desperate campaign to change Hubbin’s mind.  One day, I found the magic words:

“I’ll do it all myself.”

So he relented.  He gave me his blessing, if I would handle all the painting.  He showed me how, and left me to my own devices.  I painted, and painted, and painted.  I saw no need to primer or sand (insert eye roll), so it took a few coats.  I started in my office, which will be a different post.  I love red, which I always wanted in the living room anyway.  While I had red accent pieces, they brought out the yellow tinge in the wall color.  And the walls were dirty.

Living room, 2012:

I decided they had to be painted; it couldn’t be avoided.  I sought after a color for the walls, and happened upon this one; Squirrel by Behr.  And just in case you don’t find that ironic enough, here’s a picture of Squirrel by Behr with a rabbit picture on the wall.

I love the contrast between the white trim and the walls.  So Squirrel by Behr it was.  Here’s a rare “in process” photo, and to give Hubbin credit, he painted the top trim for me:

This was another project that took a few months, because I was lackadaisical indecisive about accessories.  This was immediately after painting:

The baby doesn’t actually play in the playpen, but since we are cheap, we refused to buy a gate that stretched across our 5ft entry between my office and living room, and just perpetually dragged that over.

After combing through several websites trying to find a fabric to make curtains (something else I’ve never done), I gave up and bought red curtains from Walmart, but they didn’t make me happy.  They were plain red curtains, and while they looked pretty against the walls, they darkened the crap out of the windows.  Plus, each side of those windows needed pictures, which were the initial idea for the room.  It took no less than 6 trips to Lowe’s, Walmart, etc trying to get everything.  I apparently cannot count in pairs.  I’ll cover what a nightmare the pictures are in a different post.  I found pelmet boxes online and decided it was a great idea!  I found fabric at Target and while I”m not wild about it, it’s much better than the curtains were.  Rambled enough?  Ready for the final picture?

There are a few things I would change.  The Squirrel is gray enough to look gray, but not gray enough to pair with a gray rug, which is annoying.  Plus, gray goes with everything, so I wish I’d have just done gray.  I do like the color though, and everyone that has seen it seems to love it too.

I’m not sold on the pelmet boxes, either.  I don’t really like the fabric, but it works for now (actually, it works forever, because I had Hubbin nail them into the window trim).  I wish they were white and red.  I constructed them from leftover parts from the bathroom remodel in less than 10 minutes.  The pictures are completely different than I had initially planned for, but I refused to make a 7th trip to Lowe’s, so I completely scrapped the entire idea and redid it.  I’ll cover them more on a different post as well.

All in all, I’m really impressed with how it all turned out, especially with minimal effort.  I hung the pictures, which are from Overstock and had been laying around for a while.  The main difference is the trim and walls are painted, the shutters are taken off the windows, and the pelmet boxes are up.

Any comments or suggestions?