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Thursday, September 6

Living Room - Post Nesting

After all my talk about the living room while we were waiting on baby #4, the little squirt showed up early and I never got around to sharing all the updates we actually made! Turns out babies have no respect for my blogging time. None at all. Well, never fear, because today I'll show you just where we ended up (you can see full pics of where we started in this post).


Let's just go down the list:



1. That yellow dresser.
It was just booted to the basement a couple weeks ago and replaced with a bigger one that's been hanging out down there since we moved. If you follow my instagram you've seen a few sneak peeks, but I haven't quite finished it up. But SPOILER: it's not green.

2. The fireplace/mantle. Here's the before:


We're still planning to update the fireplace door with black high-heat spray paint, but we did manage to update the mantle and add shiplap to the chimney! You can check out those posts for more details and tutorials. Those two updates were affordable and pretty simple, but boy did they change the feel of the whole room!



3. The seating. This was the biggest and most functional update we made. If you remember, this was how our living room sat in mid-February:


It was somewhere on the border of bachelor pad/does anyone actually live here? And here's the same view today:


So. much. seating. We bit the bullet for a sectional sofa and have never looked back!


I was worried it would make the room feel too crowded/cut off, so I did a lot of measuring and re-measuring and moving furniture around. One day I even pulled our side chairs over so we could get a better feel for walking around a big piece of furniture:

Even with a huge couch we still have at least three people on the recliner most days!

We are lucky enough to have a large living room with plenty of space to walk around the sofa, plus we really needed the extra seating. Like, at least one seat per person in our family would be great. So we headed to Ikea to sit on the Vimle sofa I had my eye on. I was thinking we'd try it out, go home and measure again then come back another time after we thought about it even longer. Guys, I am so indecisive. But as soon as we sat on it Husband was like "Ok. Find out which pieces we need. I'll get a cart." and I was all "BUT SO SOON?!?"


Turns out we didn't need the cart because it was only $29 to have the whole thing delivered to our house! P.S. it would never have fit in our minivan. We were optoomuchtic (for anyone who's read the Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place) on that plan. And Husband was totally right. It was time.


We shoved our old couch into our little office/library to make room for the new guy. We had to squeeze it right in front of the couch that was already in there and the boys instantly turned it into a jungle gym. Then they found out we weren't keeping it there forever and oh my word. The tears.


They also used the back couch for a reading hide-out. Which was adorable. But not enough motivation to keep a room completely filled with couches.


The new couch was delivered in a big old pile of pieces - furniture, cushions, and slip covers.



They boys and I spent the better part of a day getting it put together as much as we could (we needed daddy to help with a little heavy lifting at the end).

Q: Is it fun to assemble Ikea furniture with three small boys both under foot and on top of said furniture?

A: Nah. But you better believe it's better than doing it with four. There is no way on this green earth we could have completed this after M4 showed up. Unless we waited until, like, now and I'd be putting it together instead of writing this post.

Look at all that space! This is already longer than our old couch!

As soon as it was done and we saw how many bodies can comfortable fit... we knew we could never go back.



Things I love about the Vimle sofa:
  • You can configure it any way you want. You can choose the number of seats, the shape, and even add features like a chaise or ottoman. 
  • Low profile. The low backs mean we can easily see over it to the rest of the house, so the room still feels spacious and open!
  • Removable covers. Every piece of fabric on this couch can be taken off and washed. Every piece. Did you know we have four small boys in this house? Things are gonna need washed. 

Things I can deal with:
  • Assembly. My pregnant self with three boys got this mostly put together ourselves and it took almost a full day. I was in nesting mode and actually loved making progress and keeping busy, but keep it in mind if you're not. It took a long time to put together. 
  • The color choices. There were a handful. None of them were my first choice, but this one is working out just fine (and is way less blue than it looks in most of the pics. sorry about that.) There was a greenish gray couch I l.o.v.e.d. but the Vimle isn't available in that color, and it's functional features won out over the fabric choices. And hey, it's still a great couch!
Things I hate about the Vimle:
  • ??? I mean, we've only had it a few months, but there is literally nothing I hate about it so far.
I promise it's gray. Not blue.

4. The lighting. Guys, if you haven't noticed it yet, go ahead and get ready for the best thing that ever happened to this house.

Now you may be wondering: did they get more lamps?
No.
A ceiling light?
No.
Uhh... skylight?
No.
Wait, did you even add any lighting?
Well...
We didn't add lighting so much as we replaced an old sad floor lamp with THIS PANDA LAMP.


BOOM.


And the best part? I had this panda in my room when I was little. My mom saved it all these years and gave it to me when she was getting ready for a yard sale. It's so perfect I can hardly stand it.

When we first plugged it in it wasn't functional anymore, so Husband picked up a lamp kit and totally rewired it. Good as new. And while we're talking about all the work that went into this panda and who did it, I just want you guys to know: I picked out the shade. So. Not all heroes wear capes. 


Mr. Panda is on a sewing table I found at a yardsale years ago (we used it as a night stand at our last house) and the books and wooden bowl are all yardsale finds as well.


If you ever happen across this Reader's Digest of North American Wildlife grab it and don't let go. It is so beautifully illustrated. If you have any animal lovers in your life they will be over the moon, and it also makes a perfect coffee table (or end table) book!


But let's get back on track: Did we actually solve the lighting problem.

I'm gonna have to say no. I mean, this bulb seems a little brighter than the other one, but it's still two lamps and we're still basically in a pit of darkness. I can't be sad about it when we have a panda lamp.


5. Curtains. After an appropriate amount of flip-flopping, we went with the extra set of curtains that match our dining room. I even hung the other curtains up for a while just to be sure (you can see them up in the pic where we tested the sofa layout), and these were the hands-down winner. Good call on that, guys.


I still need to re-center the cloc now that we have curtains up. But... I'm not nesting anymore and it just doesn't feel that important. Someday. Someday I'll do, guys. But it is not this day.


6. A rug. Negative. But naked floors are perfect for dirty summer feet. Once winter hits we may start looking again, but for now we're good.


7. The walls. We did hang my favorite print above the recliner. Maybe a smidge high, but we were covering a hole in the wall we didn't want to fill, okay? We fully support this method of picture placement. The other wall still hasn't been touched, but I'm leaning toward the simple gallery wall. I even started my macrame training (check it out on my instagram!).


That's where we're at. I'll still keep my eye out for a cozy rug and a few perfect throw pillows, but it's already feeling so much more like home. Yeah? Get it? That's called "proof I should go to bed."


I'd love to hear what you guys have been working on!

5 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thank you! I'm so happy with how it's coming together. :)

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  2. It looks cool! We also started a small rearrangement in the house and I also want to buy a corner sofa, always wanted this :)
    Now I'm considering different options and found a good offer on Slf24 sofas. Corner sofa, also gray (I think one of the most versatile) and at a discount, do you think it's worth taking?

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    Replies
    1. I haven't regretted our at all! If you're happy with the price, go for it! :)

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