House to Home - Part 1

As part of my goals for 2014, I am trying to blog more. In attempts to do so, I am going to post a very mini series on how we have made our house a home in the past one and a half years. We moved into our new house June of 2012. Going from a relatively small house of just under 1900 square feet and moving into a house of 3200 square feet meant we had lots of space to fill! I love our new house and even over a year later we still have plenty of space to be filled. For the first couple months I was focused on getting the playroom set up for the boys (I posted about it HERE) and getting Thomas' nursery ready, which you can read about HERE. Over the summer I was able to work on the formal living room which had been a nearly vacant holding ground for artwork needing to be hung up. My sister, Allison, is a interior designer and I think every time she came to my house and saw that shameful room she had a small silent stroke.



In between her silent strokes, Al helped me design my new formal living room. I sat down with pen and paper while she walked around the room saying 'put two chairs here' and 'add a console with a mirror here' or 'make a cute seating arrangement here' and 'a cool old mantel and surround would be neat'. I just nodded in agreement to everything she said because surely she knows way more about how to set up a room than me and faithfully took notes. (Brad did not go for the matel and surround that surrounded an imaginary fireplace). Then it was time for me to shop til I dropped. I picked everything out although 90% was approved by Al before I bought it. :)

Not only am I lucky that my sister is an interior designer, but I am also lucky that due to nursing an infant baby, I had lots of time to search craigslist for furniture in the middle of the night. I am a self proclaimed cheapo so I wanted a bargain if possible. Of course everything I liked ended up being pricey, but still less than paying for new furniture. I was able to find two Restoration Hardware chairs, a recovered vintage couch, a gold framed mirror, two ottomans and 4 gold frames. Not too shabby! My mom found the coffee table on a facebook garage sale site that fit perfectly.

I was wanting to go for a 'fancy casual' look in this room. Is that even a thing? I wanted it to look nice and put together, but I want people to actually be able to sit in there comfortably. I love how it all was pulled together. 

The two ottomans were dirt cheap on craigslist. They were dirt cheap because they were ugly, stained, and just plain yucky. However, they were a perfect size, are storage ottomans, and did I mention they were dirt cheap? I bought some fabric at Hobby Lobby and recovered them myself. They turned out really well as long as you don't open the lid and look at all the stapling on the inside. I am assuming my guests won't be doing that so I am not too worried. The hardest part of the whole project was the print on the fabric. The pattern is HUGE so that means trying to line it up for each side of the cube wasted a TON of fabric. So a word to the wise- use a small print if you need to match panels! In the end I love how they turned out and I am proud of work!

The Restoration Hardware chairs are my favorite craigslist find. They were practically brand new and were at least  50% less than what I would have paid at the store. This room is open to the entry way where the boys play with trains, cars, and floor puzzles. So we are actually in this room a lot and the chairs are quite comfy.

I bought the drapes at West Elm and I posted about how my husband customized rods from Home Depot to fit our bay window.

The table is one of the only new pieces of furniture. (The other is the floor lamp so that doesn't really count to me!). I got this in a store in Dallas and I liked that it looks like an old door. It isn't really what I wanted but I am growing to love it. I just need to get a piece of glass for the top of it. It is a pretty unique and cool table!

I had pinned an inspiration picture of a console with a large bust on it. When I told my mom, she said 'Oh we have tons of busts at the house. Come look around and take one'. Now, I have been at my parents house on average once a week or so for the last 10 years. I never once noticed a bust at their house. However, she wasn't lying when she said she a had a ton of busts. I would guess my parents have about 50 busts through out the house. How did those sneak past me?! Either way, I grabbed three for my house.

I bought a set of 4 gold frames from someone in a big ol' fancy house that I found through craigslist. Apparently these have fancy non-glare glass. So, now no one will be blinded when they look at the fancy needlework that was framed in them. Allison said the needlework is fine but I am not thrilled with it. One day I will change it up.

When purchasing the frames from the nice lady in the huge fancy house, she had a large bowl of old door knobs in her front entry. I thought it looked pretty cool and I remembered my parents had a box of old door knobs in their garage. Once again I went 'shopping' at their house and took those home with me as well!

The last little details on the table are old math books (I was a math teacher before becoming a stay at home mom) and the 'B' cake topper from our wedding.

The two last things I would like to do  is paint or stain the coffee table and paint the walls because the color is pretty goldish yellow that isn't really all that pretty which starts to blend with the gold frames and mirror. But for now it works. Oh, I would also love to get wood floors, but who doesn't??

So, there is my fancy-casual formal living room. If you would like to check out my sister's fabulous work, here are the links to her facebook and blog. She is more than happy to help you plan out your room even if you don't live near by!


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