I have to share what we did with our living room, because it turned out so well. This is the room that tried to bring our whole-house renovation to a halt ten years ago, because the challenges in there were above and beyond what my energy and our budget could handle at the time. My husband and I made the conscious choice to leave the room in its demolished state and to concentrate our efforts on the rest of the house. For a while, we used the room as a storage area and we could barely squeeze through there. Last year, we cleared out the extra stuff (found storage space for what we needed, donated/trashed the rest) and set things up so we could actually live in the space. For the home tour, we went a bit farther and I LOVE the result.
Last time you saw this view of the living room, it looked like this ... functional, but stark.
The first new thing that we notice is the stack of trunks. These used to be stored in the attic of our garage, because I hadn't figured out a place to put them. (I tell people that I need a 12-step program for my trunk addiction. I have a LOT of them.)
Imagine the conversation as I asked my husband, "Would it be weird to stack trunks on this wall?"
"I don't think so", he replied.
"The stack is gonna be seven feet tall"
"Oh."
(In case you're wondering, all of the trunks are empty right now. I'm hoping to resist the urge to store things that I probably don't need and keep them empty)
On the other wall, I moved the jelly cupboard from the office and hung a painting above it.
The painting is a portrait of me, painted last year by a dear friend of ours. It's HUGE, it fits perfectly, like it was made for this spot and I love it.
I cozied up the fireplace wall by leaning a vintage painting above the mantle (which still isn't attached to the wall), and filling the fireplace with electric candles.
At this point in the photo shoot, Alice came in to see if there was anything that I needed her to do. "Just sit there and look adorable, Alice." The trunk that she's sitting on is an antique six-board chest, with its original paint, that I picked up cheap at an estate sale. What can I say ... I have trouble resisting a good trunk.
Modern stuff is tucked onto the other wall, where it's behind you and not visible as you enter the room. TV is something that we really enjoy, but I don't like for it to be the first thing that I see in a room. The sound bar sits on a shelf above the TV, with one of my husband's paintings above it.
With an eclectic mix of worn Oriental rugs, quilts, and antique furniture in its primitive state, this room showed very well on tour day ... and it's really comfortable to live in.