Living Room

BEFORE PHOTOS

The living room, shown here with previous owner's stuff, was one of the less offensive spaces. The layout and colors were unimaginative, and yes, those are cinder blocks and plywood making up that tv stand, but the room wasn't a total eyesore except for the wall of wood "paneling".

Wood paneling is typically thin veneer type stuff that comes in sheets. Not this time. As you can see if you look closely, these are simply thin pieces of redwood fencing material nailed up individually. And note the creative mosaic quality of the pieces on the narrow right hand side of the door. The view carries you through into what is now our bedroom and you can see that the wood adventure continues beyond. We had lots to look forward to. 

THE TRANSITION

We absolutely had to tackle the horrific paneling first. Each piece had to be removed by hand. We then spackled the wall to fill in all of the holes created. This took 1/2 a day on it's own! One cool thing about these pictures is that you can see we were rocking the eco gear from the start. Can you spot a package of Seventh Generation 100% recycled content paper towels, an energy saving lamp from Southern California Edison's lamp exchange, and paint from Sherwin Williams' green line, Harmony?

Next we painted the room. We knew exactly what color we wanted, but instead of listening to myself I took the advice of several interior design blogs and choose colors near our color just to be sure. We tried all three colors and settled on the one we originally liked. The decorating advice did come in handy. We liked the next darker color, Oyster Bay, a little more but knew it would be overpowering when the whole room was done. We decided to stick with our original color choice, Comfort Grey. The lighter color is called Sea Salt. You can see the dining room beyond mocking us. 

The only salvageable part of the room was the 100% jute rug the previous owners left behind. The only problem was how filthy it was. Scott beat it and we took it out to be cleaned, and it worked out beautifully. Now we had a nice, clean, painted blank slate. 

AFTER

Using the furniture we brought with us from the apartment (originally purchased from an estate sale) and mixing it with new white Ikea pieces in traditional style, we pulled together a cool and comfortable room with just the right mix of updated, and cottage.

And here's a shot of the new rug in the room at Christmas.