From Good to Great

Before we moved in, we decided to get a new seating for our living room. In our last house we had lots of antiques, which we loved, but it was also not super comfortable. Plus our sofa had long since bit the dust. It wasn't well made nor did it clean well. 

I measured, looked at the space and was convinced a sofa and love seat would fit perfect. Sort've a make-shift sectional but allowing me to use my side tables still. 

They were delivered, I loved them. But there was one problem: they were much bigger than I had anticipated; the rest of the furniture and the new wider doors threw the proportions off. Anyway, we obviously still kept them and the living room looked like this: 

It's hard to tell in these pictures but the room was just bleh. You know. Average. One side was good but the fireplace wall was just out of joint to me. The left side of the fireplace also had this big hole/empty space where junk tended to pile up. Plus, when you walked in the front door, you instantly saw the TV/disjointed corner. That's a pet peeve. I need to see pretty when I walk in a room. 

I enlisted Anna M to help me rearrange it one Saturday morning. She's always up for a challenge. To be sure we can come up with a better option. I also sent Daniel and the boys out. Daniel doesn't do well with changes in his space so it's just better if he was gone. Off we started...first it all looked like this...

A straight up disaster. 

If we moved what has now been termed my "Noah's Ark furniture" (most of it is solid wood and h-e-a-v-y) once, we moved it 10x around that room. Well not the armoire. We couldn't even get that sucker to budge even with our back in to it. 

Finally we lay on the couches, which were in the middle of the room all cockamamie, completely defeated. Time to call in reinforcements. Man down. 

I called plan C...my friend Cecelia to be exact. She came over and told me what I needed (but didn't want to hear), I needed the TV over the mantle. I had a TV over the mantle in my last house and hated it. Not the advice I was looking for but I can always trust C to tell me what I needed to hear. 

So for the time being it landed like this until I could call the electrician. 

Basically we just flipped the TV to the other corner but it at least confirmed that the right side of the mantle was right. A chair, table and lamp was much prettier to see when I walked in. Granted only one person could see the TV but hey, it was a start. 

Finally the electrician came and the room got worse. 

But after hours of labor (we apparently have funky things in our wall) they installed the TV over the mantle and even hid the cables in the wall. Our cable box and DVD player are under the table in the corner, where the TV used to be. Nice and hidden but still accessible. The fact the cables are hidden and run through the walls makes me much happier if I had to put the TV over the mantle. 

Not only do you see a pretty chair and corner when you first walk in but there is also more seating and more lighting. The TV doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would. The room shape was just too funky to warrant any other spot with the furniture we had. 

I got a wild hare today and decided to switch out rugs too. The living room rug was a little too small and the dining room rug (found at an estate sale) was bigger. So a quick switch-a-roo and the room looks that much cozier. 

I can't wait until my new set of pillows come in next week to finish it off. And anyone else want to give sweet Jackson a hug other than me? He's such a sweet old man! He likes the rug switch-a-roo too since it's softer. 

Anyone else feel like their space is average and making some changes this summer? Or am I the only weirdo that obsesses over thinks about these things?