I found this sofa here at La-Z-Boy. I really wanted a white sofa for the living room to help lighten it up, since we painted the room such a dark color. However, Steve and I both agreed that while it would look beautiful, it would not remain white with Elway’s dark black hair or if kids were over. We compromised on a gray couch, and using a the Ikea rug and adding white pillows and blankets would help to lighten it.

We also purchased new white paint to paint all of the molding and doors in the living room to really freshen it up. With the high ceilings and older house, we decided to go ahead and add crown molding to this room as well. I am really super excited to begin working on the room. I’m also a huge fan of displaying photos, so once I get those printed, matted, and hung up, it will add even more white space and help to brighten the room.

The other way to lighten up the room will be the curtains. I’m still unsure of where to go on the fabric for this room, and I feel that I will probably go through several sets of fabric before I find exactly what I’m looking for. I’ve used the Cecilia fabric before here, so it would be nice to have that tie into a different room.

Here’s what the room looks like now:

So hopefully in the next few months we can begin making this room exactly what we want.

Right now we’ve mostly just been living in the house to get a feel for things that we thought we hated that we actually like, and things that we thought would be fine that are actually a nightmare. I’m just glad that we decided to be patient, so that we could discover them. If we’d started tearing in right away, we might have made some changes that were not necessary or neglected problems that would annoy us down the road.

Ah, so the bedroom, here it is in all its glory (or lack of):

This is right before we started painting the bedroom, so we had moved a lot of the furniture out. Here are our goals for this room: paint the ceiling, add flooring, finish drywall, and add crown molding. Once we’ve completed those things we’ll really start to focus on furniture. I like to take things in stages with this house, so that we have time to see what will really mesh together.

I created a mood board a while back for this room, and most of it still applies. We’re a bit unsure about the wardrobe at this point, but we’re going to revisit it once we finish the projects and get the bed.