Living Room Dreams

I almost don't want to show you the living room. It's that hideous. However, the worse a room looks "before", the better the "after" looks, eh? So, here's it is, in all it's blandness.


The only architectural features I am working with here are the coved ceiling and doorway. The house was vacant, but staged when we saw it. I don't think the sellers actually used that horrendous couch. [shudder] The carpet may look like a nice medium neutral in this picture, but it's actually brown. It's not in bad shape! But it's brown. Clean! But brown. So, its days are numbered. I'm thinking wood (or wood-like) flooring. I don't have to go crazy with too many possibilities in this living room because I know I want to design it around our original Victor Daniel painting.  ... Oh wow, I just realized I've never blogged about that painting! I'll do that tomorrow.

Okay, so, the coved ceilings would definitely stand out more if I painted the walls a nice rich, saturated color. But it might also be cool if I painted the ceiling too! - in a different color, of course.  Another option would be to put a dark border around the lip like this:

A third option I thought of would be to buy some carved trim/moulding from Home Depot, and put it up just under the lip of the ceiling, and maybe also just inside the ceiling itself. Hopefully that would give it a crown moulding effect like this.

Any of these options would help make the room seem a bit smaller and cozier, which it obviously needs.



Then we swing a bit to the north and see this.

I had a house like this in Portland - where the front door opened directly into the living room. Sometimes it bothered me because sitting in the living room felt a bit like you were on your way out, rather than settling in. So, I'm thinking, what would be wrong with putting in a half-wall right there where the wood floor meets the carpet? It would create a little niche where we could put shoes and coats, and it would visually divide the space. Not completely sold on this idea, but it's a thought!

And finally, the east wall.


If I did the half-wall thing, it would be there to the left.  I guess it's nice to have a fireplace, but this is not a very attractive one. It depends how we decorate this room, but I'm thinking it would be nice to tile over the brick, and keep tiling up the wall. OR, create a mantel over it. Maybe using some reclaimed wood? Could be nice!

The funniest thing about all this is that all we really have for this room is a wooden bench and an awesome painting. It's going to be pretty spare until we get more furniture. That will be a while, we're going to take our time to (hopefully) find just the right pieces.

And that's room number two!