Real life includes coming home from Thanksgiving break and walking into my bedroom and finding this:
As you may remember from this contest entry post, we had a weird window in our bedroom that looked into our enclosed sunroom. Obviously this was originally an exterior window, as the sunroom was a later addition (like, say, from the 1960s), but I imagine that even without the sunroom it has always made the walls in this room awkward. Mainly, where do you put the bed? One wall has a closet and the bedroom door and two have windows, so that leaves just one blank wall, but wait!, oh yeah, the bedroom door opens into that wall. So basically, unless the spouses are sleeping on bunk beds or hammocks suspended from the ceiling, you're forced to push your no-bigger-than-a-queen-size (but even then it's tight!) bed up against a wall with a window. Which is so private.
This is what I'm talking about:
Now that we have two windows on the other window wall, this creeper window is obsolete. So coming home and finding that my dad had already removed the trim and window and then filled it in and started patching (as per part of my parents' Christmas gift to us!) was a wonderful surprise. The walls are plaster and the patch is drywall, which are different thicknesses, so it's a long, tedious process (if you want it to look nice) and the patching and sanding is still happening. We are currently sleeping in the living room. But you won't catch me complaining, because someone is doing free finicky work and saving me from peeping toms. It's a win-win!
As you can see, my mom and dad are making their gifts to my sister and me (plus our husbands) very service-oriented this year. Which is genius, if you ask me. My Sister the Goddess had requested that someone tackle her living room/dining room situation with some decorating expertise, and when Mom asked if I'd like to help out, I jumped at the chance. Mainly my sister needed some finesse, some organization, and above all, some color. I'm not a great photographer, so here's a not-great shot of what their living room looked like when we arrived last Saturday to work some slight magic:
They live in a church parsonage, so some things are here to stay (ceiling fan, carpeting, blinds). But some things are there by choice; for example, she asked for that paint, which is a nice, neutral, light khaki.
The thing that was really bothering her was the lack of color. Her couches are beautiful and new and wonderful, but they are brownbrownbrown, and she felt like she was swimming in a sea of brown with the walls, the couches, the pillows, the end tables, and the carpet all together.
Our challenge felt like that of a HGTV show: Make this room POP much more with new fabrics, window coverings, organization, and perhaps some furniture, all on an extremely slim budget. We had enthusiasm on our side, plus the fact that my sister didn't give us any parameters. She gave us a few color suggestions (mainly NO BROWN), but beyond that, she pretty much trusted us.
My mom was the master organizer of everything, but she included me on all the decisions. A couple of weeks ago we trekked to Ikea and found curtains (Ikea is THE BEST place for curtains, as long as you're okay with a limited selection) and lots of awesome fabric for pillow coverings. Last week I used Raechel's easy-peasy tutorial for pillow slipcovers and covered her four existing BROWN sofa cushions, plus two more down forms we had on hand. My mom also found and improved a bench for their entryway, put up curtains in the dining room, and donated a lovely china cabinet for my sister's china and pretties, then displayed said china in said cabinet, but I'm focusing on the living room right now. (Yes, we did all of this in one day. We came exhausted but proud.)
Here is a shot of my brother-in-law hanging the curtains on the freshly-installed hardware, which is the same hardware from this post. I cannot recommend it enough. We used two pairs of these curtains (beautiful in person! purple!) to add color and bulk to the windows. She doesn't need functional curtains, since they have the large faux wood blinds for that--these are just for looks, which is just as well, since these three windows are so long we'd need about four pair to fully cover them.
And here's a kind of dark shot of the finished product:
Nothing earth-shattering. We didn't have that kind of budget. But with some rearranging, a new-used chair, some color and some imagination, everything suddenly looks more grown-up and more polished.
And if the difference doesn't really communicate in these bad photos, then please just believe me. When you're standing there in front of it all, you don't even notice the weight of BROWN anymore.
We had to stick with the original furniture arrangement, since that's really what works in this space. But the important thing is that it works.
My sister apparently now has her Christmas things all up, so everything is extra twinkly. Plus my mom is also going to arrange a photo display wall just off the living room, bringing the grown-up level of this place up to MARRIED WITH KIDS AND ALSO STYLISH, so I just can't wait to see that.
Mainly I want you guys to be inspired to a) kick a little bit of cheap color in your lives and b) do creative service gifts like this for others in your lives. Next up my mom and I are going to paint my bedroom, which includes a huge all-wall stencil, and then my mother is going to collapse and not leave her house until spring and probably also scream every time she is approached by a gallon of paint or a yard of fabric.
The moral of this story is: Let's all hear it for my mom! And color! And cheap Ikea curtains!
2 comments:
It looks fabulous!!! Yay you guys!
my two favorite parts of her new living room: the khaki paint!!!! and the orange pillows!!!! It looks so nice!
and I'm so glad your dad can fix that weird window that was in your room!
and I'm glad you are keeping things simple. you're actually doing more than I'll probably be doing by the time I have kids!
-Denise
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