Living Room Transformation

It has almost been a year since we begun our living room transformation. It started as a possible vision, a "what if", and now we are finally near complete. We began in February 2010.

This is what our living room looked like before we began in February. This is the first area/place you see when you walk into our home. To your right, when standing at the place of this first photo there is/was a door leading into our guest room to the right. I do not have a before picture (that I could find) to show that to you well.

Standing at our entry "hall" at the front door, to the right is/was a door leading to our guest room

The first thing we did in February was close in the entry door (one of two) to our guest room. It was the first thing you came to within the room, on your right as you entered into the living room. Here is the photo of what it looked like once we closed the door in and made it once again a wall.

The door to the guest room that is no more

In March, we took our living room transformation further and worked to open up the flow through the living room and kitchen. We LOVE how creating this opening and "bar" type area really opened up the space. The rooms now feels so much bigger and we look forward to seeing how it makes hosting large gatherings much more interactive, rather than having one group in the kitchen, on in the living room with little room for interaction otherwise. (Sadly, life has gotten so busy, I'm not sure we've had a big gathering - always less than 6 or 7 people - since we began this transformation - that changes tonight!)

Unfortunately life got busy and expenses were not available, so without time and money, the living room transformation was put on hold after this event in March.

However, thanks to the amazing nature of my parents, their awesome hard work, and dedication of their New Year's weekend time, we were able to utilize the time that Mr. McGoo was in Ethiopia and I was already home. We worked hard together to surprise Mr. McGoo and were able to ring in the new year with a much closer to completed living room!

The first step was SUPER DAD tackling the much needed sanding of the newly created wall (door no more), and working to keep such sanding from covering every inch of my home with dust. Dad's genius created a bubble that made the project neat and clean. Check him out!


Once that was completed, we were ready to start the priming and painting process. I struggled to decide on a paint color for the room. I searched on the internet for inspiration, hoping to find a room I wanted to mimic and utilize the style... it took awhile, but I found it. This was my inspiration:

Simple Inspiration - NOT MY HOME!

I took this photo as inspiration and built my own design/decor around it. First was the paint color... thanks to youngest sis, who helped, we picked out a color called BON VOYAGE. It's teal. I began searching for an accent color - thinking it would be that burnt orange color, but as I found decor pieces I liked, I ended up choosing a muted red accent instead. The other accent is brown. With the paint color in hand, and the accent colors chosen, I worked to find a rug, curtains, new ottoman/coffee table, etc...

Here is the close to finished product (below). What do you think? Did we create a LIVING ROOM TRANSFORMATION?

New artwork - Mr. McGoo hung them perfectly, it wasn't easy!

I have a side table to the right now (no more tv tray).

New curtains, new pillows

New ottoman/coffee table (much less bulky than before), new rug

Love how the opening now pops even more with the trim painted white

View from the foyer/entry "hallway" - front door area

new large vase and decor

Only thing left is to finish the decor: plans are to add a few pieces of art, a new end table (waiting for price to hopefully go down), possibly a ladder bookcase (watching the price on that one too), getting Mr. McGoo's favorite rocking chair recovered and cushion added, and adding a few hung photos.

Thankful for all the help along the way and one more room in this house is coming together... and like always, we'll have another home project soon. Always something!