Finally, I have a "before" picture for this blog. I was so good for so long at documenting everything in Kodak Gallery albums, but when I left Fidelity, I somehow lost all my photos when I changed my email address on my Kodak account. Boo. Anyways, I was able to find this one, not-very-good "before" picture of the living room. It was taken Christmas 2006.
The paint in the room was a solid "cream" much like the rest of the house. Like brass, cream was a main theme that I set out to squash very early on. The big beautiful windows in the room (there are 5, with half-moon windows above each) were covered by very heavy, outdated, mustardy-colored drapes with a striped valance on top. The furniture wasn't bad at all, we had a very big comfy couch, loveseat, and chair that Shane's parents had left for him, and round end tables as well as a matching coffee table. The area rug was most likely from Shane's Lexington house.
The windows without the drapes, plus a test paint color. I literally tried 20-something shades of beige before I found one we liked. Beige is tough! It can be too yellow, too warm, too gray, too purple, the list goes on. We finally decided on Benjamin Moore Cotswold from the Aura paint collection, in 75% strength. Although lightening the base color worked for us in this case, I don't recommend doing it, because even taking it to 75% can change the shade. It's much better/easier to just find a full-strength color you like, I know that now.
Ollie and Kiki hanging out on the old drapes.
The new rug we found at Building #19 in Burlington, MA. This place has the BEST selection of wool and Oriental rugs! They have all sizes, prints, and colors.
A couple pictures of the paint-in-progress. We use a company called Alpha Painting for our big paint jobs. Their foreman is Socrates, you'll see his name quite a few times in this blog. All trim, the fireplace, and the wall from the chair rail down became Decorator's White. The bright white trim against the mocha-colored paint looks amazing, and really pops.
While the painting was being completed, we hung out in our 3 season room, which is right off the living room through the French doors. We loved spending time in this room, it was so cozy! Our eventual plan for this room is to make it a kid's TV/play room, with wall-to-wall carpeting, a sectional couch, and storage for toys, movies, etc. It is already fully heated which is great.
The new furniture, like our master bedroom furniture, is made by Klaussner and was also purchased at Jordan's. We bought a couch, two large arm chairs, and 2 matching ottomans.
We just recently bought a new coffee table and end tables. They are Paula Deen, from Jordan's as well. We love the expanding top surface of the coffee table, perfect for dinner and Jeopardy!
And...the completed room.
Well, ALMOST complete. We still need to replace that brass fireplace door! Soon:) The Roman shades were made custom by Calico Corners. The mirror is from Pottery Barn. TV stand and corner shelf are from Restoration Hardware's Camden collection. The new wall sconces are from bellacor.com....best lighting website ever! Huge selection, and free shipping on most items. I forgot to mention that after the painting was completed, we also stripped and darkened the parquet floor. We only brought it a shade or two darker, but it became more chestnut and less honey-colored, and we like it so much better.
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