Living room done! (just kidding)

Living room done! (just kidding)

Well, the living room isn’t actually done, but the paint is — and that’s really half the battle, right?! To recap, our living room used to be pink — really, really pink — and we decided to paint it white — really, really white. It was a big decision for us, but we are SO HAPPY with it. Well, see it for yourself! But, first, here’s what it looked like before.

That was a good pink (“Irresistible” Sherwin-Williams 6562). It was just, after four years of looking at it every day, even I was sick of it. We decided to try white paint because this room gets tons of natural light and we knew that white paint would reflect the light like crazy. We also wanted a color that would complement all the rooms around it, since all of our first floor rooms open up to each other, and the surrounding rooms are light blue, mint, gray and yellow. The white is perfect. Take a look!

Isn’t that light just amazing? We used off-the-shelf Valspar Ultra White in satin on the walls and the same color in a flat finish on the ceiling. This room is SO BRIGHT and we LOVE it. Both of us were really unsure going into this paint job if we’d think the white was boring, if it would just look dull and clinical, but it doesn’t at all. We love how the white makes our old woodwork really pop and look so rich, and all that light, oh, it’s so good.

We have moved some of the furniture back into the room in a very “rough draft” sort of way (that light isn’t even plugged in). The rug used to be in our rumpus room as well as that carved wood sidetable and, of course, the piano (best decision ever, by the way. It’s so much better in here). I’m not sure this is where the chair will stay or even that I like the orientation of the rug (I was hoping it would fit horizontally but it’s just a little too long).

Obviously this room is far from done, and we always like to make a to-do list of what’s left’s to do.

1. Lighting. Ugh. We’ve disliked this dinky little brass chandelier since we moved into the house, so replacing that is high on our to-do list. We actually already have the replacement light but just need to do a little DIYing to it to get it ready. I mean, of course.

2. Art and stuff. We hung some of the art that we used to have in this room, but we decided to move my great grandfather’s portrait to the dining room after accidentally discovering that he looks amazing over the fireplace. So we need to add some more art to the living room, and we need to move some stuff back into the cabinet and generally make this place more interesting and inviting.

3. Thermostat. I’m not crazy about how the piano is just the teeniest tiniest bit too tall and too wide to slide under the thermostat and center on that wall. By no more than an inch each way, UGH. Andy doesn’t mind, but it is one of those things that’s going to drive me nuts. Which means it will drive him nuts. That’s how marriage works. We’re going to either get a smaller one like a Nest, or move the one we have a few inches up, or a combo of both.

4. Curtains. My dream was to get rid of the tension rod/single panel curtains, and hang high, wide curtain rods with nice, floor-length curtains on either side… but that dream has been dashed. There just isn’t room with the furniture placement, which is fine because we’ll get to show off the gorgeous old woodwork. So we’ll be looking at a similar situation to what we have now, but with new curtains. You can’t tell in these pictures, but our current curtains are a pale pink.

I’m sure we’ll be tinkering with this space for the next… forever… but it’s already starting to turn into a room that we’re really happy with. What do you think so far?? Are you team pink or team white? And be honest, does the rug look weird like this?

— Kerry