Living Room Then and Now
When we first arrived in NY we landed in this house.
Matt had come from VA to house hunt and found nothing. We thought we'd rent for the first year and decide where we wanted to live after that. If you are familiar with this area, then you know there is a wide gap for the renters market. There are little homes and huge homes.
This was a home our agent found right in the middle.
I hadn't seen it prior to moving and it was quite traumatic for me as we arrived. I wasn't so pleased, but as we got going, and got all of the owners stuff out, I started to feel better.
Initially we signed a 1 year lease, with an option to buy after that.
After a few months in the house our landlord told us we could do whatever we wanted to the house, he was sure it would only add value.
I wanted to record each room before we move, as well as how it has changed since we've lived here.
I started our house tour in the living room. See that post
.
Here is how our living room started. It really was the room in the best condition.
The lavender/pink walls weren't that great, but hey, it wasn't wall paper! :)
We bought this furniture when we built our first home in 2000. It is still going strong. Even with the everyday use it has gone through these last 10 years.
I love the olive color. I intend to keep it!
I had the furniture arranged in a similar way it's done now. It would seem my stuff just didn't seem to fill this room enough. With kids, too, these chairs had a hard time staying put! Also, at this time our big oversized chair was in the family room.
When I got the go-ahead to change things, I painted this room a neutral tan color.
I brought the oversized chair into this room, there is plenty of room for it.
This has been the color pallet for this room for much of our stay here.
I've also added a deep red, via pillows. I love the deep purple and red in the fall.
I usually had some sort of bookcase there on the walls between the dining room and this room.
Here is like
the only
image I have of this wall, which now has a
.
In 2009 I was ready for a change again. I went rug hunting. I liked the blue, with the olive, but went with the brown. I think I had a hard time finding curtains I liked with the other color pallet.
At this time I also changed my furniture around, to create a seating area on one end of the room, for more intimate conversation.
This is the only image that I could find of the other side of the room. Where the tree is, is where our oversized chair was, a little reading nook. I had put two bookcases together in the center to sort of act as a focal point.
This arrangement didn't work for very long. The room was weighted weird. I changed it back just months later.
In 2013 I painted again. I had been wanting less contrast in this room, more monochromatic. I went with more of an olive/gray color. I, wanted to change out my drapes, but at that point we had started talking about moving. I stayed with these ones and will leave them here when we go.
I changed out the rug, lightened it up. I had brought in the coffee table that I'd refinished when I arranged back to this in 2010.
And so here we are now!
I painted the walls Olive Gray by Valspar (Lowe's).
Olive is a tricky color, depending on how much blue or yellow is in there.
The photos above make my couch look a little more blue hue, but these couches have more yellow in the green.
Again, this room was a pretty easy fix for us!
We changed out the heat registers and intended to switch out the trim, but never did. We will do that before we leave! We also painted the windows.
I've said it before, this room has been rearranged more than any other room, except Q's!
It felt good to finally get it how I wanted it!
If I were staying
I'd change out my curtains, but I like everything else.
It has been a great room to host guests in. It is large and gets good light. In fact, in that little sliver of light is often where you can find me on a sunny afternoon!
Here is a look at those arrangements on paper...
