Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Living room project

We've been slowly trying to make our 1930's home feel more modern and updated. It's been quite the process to say the least and we're not even half way through. We have high hopes of updating parts of our kitchen later this spring/early summer. But for now here are some before and after pictures of our living room. It's still not 100% done, but I figured I'd blog about it while it's still new to us.


*Before - All the walls and trim were white. The fireplace was painted white brick with a large mirror fixed to the wall above.

*Before - Empty corner for creating piles and old light switch plate. Not to mention the old chair that came with the house :)
* Before - White walls with simple decor. Oh, and the old chair again.



**After - First off we replaced the old chair with a brand new one! That's right Logan and I actually purchased something new from the store and not craigslist :) a huge step in our marriage.
Trying some paint colors on the wall and taking a good look at our old chair. It was in the house when we came to NY house hunting last April and the owners left it (along with some other furniture we've tossed). We figured we'd use this chair until we bought couches and other furniture to sit on. It served us well (and is actually now sitting in our den).
Pretty neutral colors and classic style. We needed something that would go with our couches that wasn't so modern.

Before -

After - We painted the walls green and got a piano! I've wanted a piano since the day we moved in. I knew one would fit perfectly in this corner and it does! Only a few inches to spare. Green paint all over and a satin gloss white molding and trim (we still need to finish the baseboards). The flat white walls were tricky. Every time anything touched them it left a mark.

The real project: A new fireplace!!

Logan did an amazing job creating a new fireplace front. The old brink front was such an eyesore, to me. Logan took some time figuring out how to drill into brick and cut the molding. Once he figured it out things seemed to move rather smoothly.
We also took down the attached mirror and added our own. We haven't hung it on the wall yet and don't know if we will. We kind of like it propped up.

I still have throw pillows to make (to add some accent colors) and decor to go onto the walls (to complete the overall look for the room). We need to stain the book shelf, to the left of the fireplace, dark to match the doors and front window, oh! and paint the baseboards. I don't love the high-water length, dated curtains either. I've been on the look out for something great to replace them with.

It's been a nice change and we enjoy being in the living room to see our work (or should I say Logan's amazing fireplace!).

Monday, February 6, 2012

Logan's Birthday

I'm a little late on this post (almost a month). We enjoyed a nice day as a family together on Logan's birthday. We worked on our living room together and pretty much kept it low key. Logan requested brownies instead of a cake. Brennan was a little confused by that. We called them "birthday brownies". Yet, I kept saying, "we're going to have birthday cake for Dad . . ." At times he thought we were having cake AND brownies. Whoops.
Logan and his boys. They both sure love him! Brennan runs to the door everyday he gets home from work chanting his name. Trevor screams until Logan picks him up and gives him attention too.
Trevor was a bit curious about the food Brennan was eating. We gave Trevor a taste too so he wasn't missing anything.

Happy Birthday Logan!