Front Room Make-Over

I've been meaning to do a post about our front room makeover for so long that I forgot if we painted last year or in 2015. How could I forget something like that?! I know it was a week at the beginning of summer and that I spent a lot of time sitting in the driveway to be out of the way. We hired painters and they did all the upstairs living areas, the hallway, and the upstairs bathroom. (I painted the entire basement, master bedroom and both kids rooms by. my. self. so I knew I couldn't take on vaulted ceilings with three little kids running circles around my ladder for a month.) We chose the same paint I used for the master bedroom "Natural Choice" with "Dover White" on all the trim and white on the ceiling. Behind our cabinets in the kitchen we used "Revere Pewter," which is the shade just darker than "Natural Choice." The metamorphosis in the kitchen isn't complete, so I'll save that for another post.

 We were almost done breaking down the room before I thought to take "before" pictures. I had family photos on those ledges and a big photo of my immediate family over the piano.The photos are pretty much the only thing I liked in the room. That couch. We bought it because we needed something in our guest room in our first house. It is a fold-out single bed. We got it second-hand and I hated it from the first, but thought it would be a place-holder until we got something we really wanted in the room. Thirteen and a half years later...

I had a nice lady paint the piano blue (with chalk paint) and I got those shelves from Ballard Designs (marked down 50%!). My goal in this teeny, tiny room (11' x 11.5') was to make the furniture seem less imposing. Painting the piano a light color makes it take up less space, see. (Not really, it's an illusion.) The corners of the room were useless space before and now we have storage for our favorite books and games. I had the big canvas print of the family photo Melissa took last year made at Costco for pretty cheap. The baskets under that couch have my piano books in them.

I did have curtains up, but they started under the "eyebrow" of the window. Not great. The chairs were another purchase I made because they were cheap and we needed something to sit on in the front room. When the home teachers came, our whole family of five would cram into the chair and a half and the home teachers took the chairs. Elbows! The file cabinet was part of my brilliant plan to store my piano books for my students in file folders. When I got the drawers home I discovered they do not fit standard hanging files. The Worst.

I researched couches for a year before we bought these. They had to fit width-wise, but I didn't want them coming into the room too much, so they had to be shallow too. I wanted couches that didn't invite lounging. Sitting only. These are from Crate & Barrel and they are 33" deep (most couches are at least 36" deep). We went back and forth for a long time, then decided on one couch and one love seat in the same fabric (platinum). The curtains are from Ballard Designs and we placed the curtain rod above the window "eyebrow" to make the room seem taller/bigger. I put the same crown molding ledges up and the same photographs are in the room as well, with a few added.

I'm in this room a lot because I teach piano in here. Before we redecorated, the room made me grumpy. Now I love to be in it. All my favorite books and pictures are in the room. (I thought it would take pressure off the other bookshelves in the house, but somehow they're still full too. I may need a support group for people who buy pretty books.) Here are some of my favorite views of our front room:

Aren't those the most gorgeous books?! On the wall is a photo of my Grandpa Furniss as a baby with his parents.

This corner has my favorite pictures of Brian and me and my favorite books.

Looking out of the room you can see whichever quilt I have hanging up and a photo of my Grandma Furniss when she was a toddler (the bottom photo), and a photo of my Grandpa Furniss and his sister, Lola as toddlers. Lola introduced my Grandparents to each other. :)

That concludes our make-over tour for today. :)