LIVING ROOM PROGRESS

In my last living room progress post, I shared our fireplace makeover with you! That labor-of-love project made such a huge difference in the space. From the beginning, this room has been deemed the most "dingy" room in the house and needed the most paint work BUT it was also the room with the most character. Although we knew we had a lot to do, and still have a lot left! Jon and I are SO excited to see this room complete. It already feels SO different from when we first moved in!

The above photos are from the home listing.

So, our next major project for this room after the fireplace was to paint ALL of the wood trim, doors and windows. We also wanted to replace door knobs, light switches and outlet plates since we had a variety of gold, black, brown and beige going on before. ;) Not cute.

Since having a baby makes projects a little more tricky to knock out in a few full days, we spread this project over a couple weekends. Here is a little list of what we did to the space:

* Caulk and spackle everything. There were so many cracks between the walls, trim and windows, it made everything look so sloppy. After spending almost a day working on this it made a huge difference!

* Prime, prime, prime! We had to do two coats of primer on all of the trim, with very careful attention to the wall of windows. We used Kilz Primer and it worked really well! This is the same primer we used for the fireplace.

* After spending a lot of time priming, we put two coats of semi-gloss bright white paint over all of the trim, windows, and doors. We decided to do two coats just to make sure we got everything and that there would be absolutely no wood showing through. We also figured that if we were going to take on this major project that we would do our best to do it right! ;)

* And finally, we prepped everything and painted the walls a beautiful grey color to really make that trim pop. We were very much done with the dingy green tone that was in there previously.

We are SO pleased with the final results! We still have a lot of work to do in this space, but the major project is done! We have so many excited plans for our home this year and I can hardly wait to share them with you. :)

LEFT TO DO IN THE LIVING ROOM
* Replace the odd patch of carpet with something new, and get rid of the scary transition strip, or "toe ripper" as I like to call it.
* Paint the built-in with a fresh coat of white paint and possibly paint the backing a different color.
* Purchase some furniture pieces and get this room decorated!
* Mount TV.
* Hang some beautiful pictures.
* Replace the "boob" light on the ceiling beam.