The Living Room

At our previous house we had one family and then a roughly finished basement space for the kids' playroom.  This house has a living room space and then the entire basement is finished for a family room and playroom.  That translates to grown-up space and kid space!!

So here is the grown up space!!!  I'm in love with it!

There are very high ceilings and it is open to the entry, dining room space, and kitchen.  The wood floors were here and go throughout.

See that fireplace?  It's a gas fireplace that turns on with the flip of a switch (or does now that we had it repaired...sigh...)  We have already been enjoying it here in the chilly tundra!

So open!  Those stairs lead up to our loft space - which is my office and our workout space.  Pictures of that will come later :)

So let's see - the rug is BEAUTIFUL and BOLD - it's blues and teals and greens and reds.  And it's from Walmart!  I have found the best selection and great quality at a great price there of all places!  So since I went with a bold rug, we added in 2 beige club chairs that we've owned for years - and somehow managed to keep clean even with 4 kids!  The sofa is IKEA and has a removable washable slipcover.  It's really comfortable for the price!  

Funny story - since the IKEA closest to our new house is over 2 hours away, I purposely made all my purchases in RI (well, really over the border in MA) and just had the movers move the boxed items.  My best friend and I went to get this sofa all by ourselves - carted it, loaded and unloaded it.  We drug it into the storage container at the old house that we used while showing our house and then we drug it into the old house when the house sold and we could get rid of the container.  We were so proud of ourselves because this is no light sofa!!!

Anyway, the pillows are a mix of Homegoods, TJMaxx, and Amazon covers over IKEA pillow.  I went with teal to pull from the rug and then added red furniture to accent - also influenced from the rug.  The hardest thing was buying everything and then having to wait several months to see if it all pulled together - which it luckily did!!!

This little area is right off the entry space.  The dresser is IKEA and was part of Bubba's nursery (it matched his crib) but is now great for Dady to drop his stuff and now houses all the much-needed winter hats, gloves, and scarves!!!  And we love the IKEA egg chair - although it has been moved around the house since these pictures :)

The red cabinet is Target and the shelf is off Amazon.  Once I unpacked all the kids' chapter books, we discovered we needed another book shelf and I needed another red accent piece :)

This is shelf is one of my favorite possessions.  Daddy built it for me shortly after we got married and I fill it with so many treasures and family pictures.  This spot is visible when you come in the front door and I love seeing it :).  

This table was a gift from my in-laws for the new house.  It's perfect behind the new sofa!  And it was off Amazon :)

Here's a shot of the entryway.  There is a great closet to the left and a hallway to the right that leads to the garage and laundry and basement stairs.

This looking down from the loft.  The coffee and end tables are from Pier One and we got them from my in-laws for our wedding gift 17 years ago.  Shortly after these pictures I decided they needed a little refreshing (although they were not in bad shape at all for all those years of use!) and painted them with gray chalk paint and now we LOVE them!

This leads into the bedroom hallway.  That red grain bin is from Homegoods YEARS ago!  It is the only place we allow toys in this space and mainly for Bubba since he's still so young :)

The blue frame is a frame my dad made out of barn wood from my grandparents' homestead a long time ago.  It used to have a picture of me as a little girl in it.  I spray painted the frame and added chalkboard paint to the glass.  It has out "Michigan Bucket List" written on it...and we have been excitedly crossing off new sights we've seen.  We hope to tackle a bunch of the Upper Peninsula sights early next summer :)

Of course, since I took these picture mid-summer, many things have been rearranged :).  One crazy fact about me is that I love to move things around!!!  Daddy never knows what he'll come home to!  And when I was teaching my children learned to be flexible because I constantly rearranged the classroom :)

So as I start to decorate for Christmas, I'll post more pictures with the new layout.  I "think" I've figured out what works best - at least for this month...lol!  And speaking of Christmas - I can't wait to decorate the new space!!!!  I've already addressed the outside (before it gets to bitterly cold!!) but I', waiting for my best friend's visit next week to tackle the inside!