persnickety house: Living Room Before & After Photos

Before and after pictures of our living room/dining room done on a budget. Changing paint makes a huge difference!


So, I intended on writing this post nine months ago. Funny how that happens. I had no idea that after moving into our new house, things would take so long to fall into place. Maybe it’s just me, but I still don’t feel done and settled. I still have walls I want to fill and more decorating, though I don’t want it to look cluttered. For that reason, I’ve put off writing this post. I mean, it looks good (I think), but is it Pinterest-worthy? Such (silly) pressure.
 
After we finished our bathroom, I planned to show off our living/dining room and bedrooms but they’re still not done. Julia’s room is almost there but all the pieces of her gallery wall are laying on the dresser. Our room is also almost there but we got a new bed (finally upgraded to a king!) which means we need a new headboard, bedspread, etc. Anyway, it’s coming along and I’ll share it eventually.

On to the living room. It started off as a peach, cave-like room. The ceilings are high and there is a lot of light so there’s no reason for it to feel like a cave.

I knew I wanted to go with grays. I would’ve painted the whole house in shades of gray but Bob wasn’t totally on board. I got away with about half of it. We went with Benjamin Moore Stonington Gray for most of the walls and Timber Wolf on the dining room wall (with the mirror), which is a shade darker. Looking at it now, I wish we would have went even a shade darker, but I like it.

I need/want something above the TV and the gallery wall above the couch is ever changing. It’s anniversary pictures – we take a new one each year – so it looks awkward at this point but it grows so we wanted to leave room.

I took these pics last week and we’ve already since changed the curtains and those are Julia’s 1 year pics hanging on the wall and we’re about to do 2 year pics. Maybe it’ll always be a work in progress and I guess I’m ok with that.

Here are some links to the larger items but if you want to know about anything specific, feel free to ask!

Sectional Couch – Elliot from Macy’s
Mirror – IKEA Hemnes
Chandelier – IKEA Alghult
Dining Room Table with Bench – Better Homes & Gardens Bankston
Living room walls – Benjamin Moore Stonington Gray
Dining room accent wall – Benjamin Moore Timber Wolf

Many thanks to Benjamin Moore for providing the paint for this project. Visit their website and play with their “Personal Color Viewer” if you have a painting project in the works – it’s fun & really helpful.

Check out our bathroom before & afters here.