Shut the front door…we finally hung something

Most of this week was spent oohing and awing over the new living room wall color (I’ve told Alex a million times a day how much I love the new color). But we managed to stop admiring it long enough to finally hang something on the walls. Well, not quite on the walls, more like on the fireplace above the mantle. That still counts though, right?

I mentioned a couple weeks ago (read here) that we had finally purchased a mirror for the living room from World Market. And now, we finally hung it up. Yay! Go us!

Here’s a little before shot of the sad, empty space that we’ve been staring at for so long.
 

 
And here it is a little less naked.
 

 
Did you check out the awesome wall color? Alright, I’ll shut up about it. I guess I’m just too easy to please.

For the most part we are very pleased with the mirror. We weren’t quite expecting it to be covered in shiny gold thread, but we are getting use to it. At first, I thought we’d be sending it back for sure, but it’s starting to grow on me. Now, the thing that I want to change is the color of the brick. I’ve never been a fan of the color, but I just don’t know if I have it in me to paint over brick. Don’t get me wrong, I love the way painted brick looks, but will future potential buyers love it too? Not that we plan to sell our house anytime soon, but you never know.

What do you think, paint the brick or leave her be?
 

There’s paint on our walls

We did it! We finally found some time to paint the living room, thanks to grandparents taking one child away for the weekend. And although we had a couple of curve balls thrown our way (last minute hockey tournament for Alex, trip to emergency room for Oscar), we somehow managed to finish. And I must say, I am very pleased with how it turned out.

Here’s the before shot right after we moved in:
 

 
And here’s what the living room looked like with all new furniture, but before tearing down the built-ins:
 

 
And for good measure, here’s a shot of what the wall looked like after tearing down the built-ins:
 

 
Finally, here’s what the living room is looking like today:
 

 

 
The change doesn’t seem very drastic in these photos, but the room feels so much better now. Not only did we paint the walls a light gray color, we also applied a new coat to all of the trim. It’s amazing what a fresh coat of paint will do for a room.

Before, we felt that the walls, trim and carpet were all a very similar color. The antique white caused the entire room to give off a sickly, yellow glow. We think the soft gray color on the walls adds the perfect amount of contrast without making the room feel too dark. And it’s a great neutral color that won’t scare off potential buyers should we decide to sell the house for any reason anytime soon.

Next step is to hang art/pictures on the wall and organize the bookshelves. And of course hang the mirror that I talked about here. It has been delivered, we just haven’t gotten around to hanging it yet.

I didn’t get a chance to shoot any “in progress” photos due to the fact that the hubs kept leaving me to paint all on my own. He got the chance to play in a hockey tournament, and I wasn’t about to complain about it seeing as he was going to spend his Father’s Day painting and all. So I did a lot of the room on my own, just saved the hard parts for him :)

Oh, and that trip to the emergency room that I mentioned above… Well, Oscar was being very silly Sunday morning, spinning around, making himself dizzy and falling to the ground. At one point, he stopped spinning and started to fall, so Alex tried to catch him. We aren’t quite sure what happened, but he wouldn’t stop screaming and wouldn’t move his arm. We decided a trip to the ER was the new plan for the day. Luckily, the x-rays were normal, no broken bones!
 

Just a little eco-friendly vanity

Over the past week, we’ve continued working on the living room, but it’s going to be a slow process. A lot of little steps need to be taken before we can actually start painting. So no mind-blowing “after” pictures this week. However, between sanding and wood putty, I did manage to make a long awaited purchase for the room.

Alex and I have been on the hunt for the perfect mirror to hang above the mantle in the living room for over a year. Due to the lack of windows in the room, we knew a mirror would be a good way to help bounce a little light around the room. After buying all of our new furniture last year, I found a mirror at World Market that I thought was a good option. But it was only available online and that always makes me hesitate. I really like to see things in person to know for sure what kind of quality I’m getting. However, I hadn’t really had much luck in my search, and I couldn’t get that World Market mirror out of my head. So, I showed it to Alex.
 

Not only was it the right size, price and color, it was also made from recycled magazines! Eco-friendly is always a plus. Unfortunately, my dear husband never manages to muster up enough excitement about these things, so even though he said he liked this mirror, I could tell he wasn’t in love with it and continued my search. A few months later, Alex asked me, “Whatever happened to that World Market mirror?” You can imagine the look on my face. I quickly went to the website and found that they no longer had it available. WHAT?!?! That was it. I was done. No more mirror shopping for me.

Now lets fast forward a year. I’m back at it. Searching high and low for the perfect mantle companion. And to my surprise, what do I find? World Market has brought back the mirror that I thought was gone forever! I tell Alex the good news, and we decide this must be a sign. It’s meant to be. I search for an online coupon and find a Free Shipping offer at Retail Me Not. Over $20 worth of savings! Works for me!

Now we are just waiting for the mirror to be delivered and keeping our fingers crossed that we will love it just as much in person. I’m a little worried it’s going to look very small in such a large room, but we’ll find out for sure very soon.