Finally Done!!!

We have been in our house now for about 2 months and we are still in the process of getting settled in. We got the house organized and now it's time to make each room the exact way we want it. We decided to take one room at a time and work on it until we have got it just how we want it and then move onto the next one. I am almost done with the living room and then I think I will move on to finishing up Eden's room and then onto our bedroom and bathroom. The living room was somewhat of a challenge. When we moved in we decided we were not going to put a TV in the living room. We had several reasons for this...1.) Nick and I have really been trying to not watch as much tv and we knew that if we had a tv in the living room, it would most likely be on a lot of the time. 2.) We really wanted Eden to have an open place to play as well as have an open space for guests and friends. 3.) We didn't want the focus of the living room to be the tv.

When we moved in we placed the couch up against the back wall and the space was very open. After having it that way for about a month and a half we really found ourselves not spending a lot of time in it and weren't using it to it's full potential. It just seemed really dull. We discussed it and decided to put the tv in the living room, but we wanted the tv not to be seen. We opted to get an armoire that could house the tv. I searched and searched and became increasingly discouraged by the prices of armoires. The cheapest one I found was $600 and it wasn't even that great. I decided to look through craigslist.com to see if I could find something a little cheaper and...I did! There was a woman who lived really close to us selling her armoire for $175. When we went to get it we realized this thing was HUGE!! With the help of our good friends Hayley and Alex we were able to get this massive piece of furniture to our house. We actually ended up buying it from the lady for $120 because it definitely needed some TLC. I researched ways to re-do furniture and came up with the idea to do a faux finish on it. After FOUR coats of primer, I was finally able to put the glaze on it and make it look beautiful. It took me nearly 2 weeks to finish it up and I am VERY happy to be done. A LOT of sweat went into this thing as I was only able to work on it while Eden took her naps - (around 2 pm - which equals HOTTTTT!!!) I am so glad it is finished and I'm quite happy with the way it turned out. For Father's Day Eden and I got Nick a new tv - something he has always said he thought would be cool to get. Since we got married we have been using a hand-me-down tube television that is actually quite small, so this was a fun surprise for him and he was very excited. I was more excited about the cost than anything. We were able to get a new tv AND a new (unique) armoire for the price of the armoires I saw in the stores.

Our living room also did not have a mantel on the fireplace. When we moved in, I told Nick that was one of the first things we needed to buy for our living room. Well, I also became discouraged when we looked up prices on those things....I mean the cheapest one we found was around $1,000!!!!!! Ahhhhh....NO WAY!!! We finally saw one on Home Depot's website that was around $200 and we decided to go look at it. When we got to the store they said they don't carry mantels in the store - you have to order them online. Ugh....again discouraged because what if we ordered it and it wasn't what we wanted. A guy working at Home Depot gave us the idea to make our own. We were a little hesitant at first as we have NEVER done anything like that before, but he explained it all to us and so we did. It turned out awesome and guess how much we spent on the whole thing???? $65!!

With the money we saved on our new mantel, armoire, and tv, we were able to get the rest of the fun stuff for our living room. I still have some projects for the living room I will be working on soon and there are still a few things I want to do, but for now it actually is lookin' pretty good!!

The armoire all done!!

Side view of the armoire.

The armoire being functional!

Check out these cool lamps!

I really like my new lamps - that's a lot for me b/c I am super picky about lamps!!


Side view of the new mantel! - I love it!


The new mantel - cool huh?


The fireplace with the new mantel - I am still in search of the perfect item to hang on the fireplace above the mantel - any ideas?


Like our 80's touch with the wet bar? haha...another project is to paint the cabinets to a more updated look. And, I think I will add a table and some pictures on the wall to the left of the bar - what do you think?

View of the loveseat/into dining room and kitchen

Eden's Play Nook