Living Room Reveal!

Good morning!  Before I get to the good stuff, I want to address a few things from yesterday's post.  First of all, I want to thank all of you who left sweet comments, sent emails, called, or texted.  you guys made my day.  Secondly, I want to say that I know it was negative.  And I know I was overreacting.  I just had to work through it yesterday morning and the night before that.  This is something I've been working toward for a year, and not getting in on the first round is both disappointing and frustrating.  And the fact that I have to wait another month before I find out is also very frustrating.  So I hope it doesn't offend anyone that I'm not going to apologize for my negativity, nor am I going to delete that post.  It was what I was feeling at the time, and writing that post really helped me get my feelings out, which in turn helped me to get over it quickly and move on.  I made a decision right after I wrote that post that I wasn't going to dwell on it anymore, and I went on to really enjoy the beautiful day!  Lastly, I want to address my last comment about "having enough practice with this patience thing."  I wasn't saying that I'm perfect and don't need to practice it anymore.  I was saying, sarcastically, that I'm human, and I'm sick of waiting!  I obviously know that patience is something I will be practicing throughout my entire life, and I am far from perfect in that area.  I just didn't want that comment to come across the wrong way.

Okay, now on to much more cheerful business!  The living room reveal!  The size of the room in this apartment seems to be inversely proportionate to the amount of work it required: the living room, which is the biggest room, required the least amount of work. And if you'll remember from Tuesday, the bathroom - which is the smallest room - required the most work.

Anyway, here are the Before and After photos:

Before:

After

Before:

 

After:

{Ellie says "hi"}

Details:

 

 

I feel like the pictures, for whatever reason, are not portraying what this room really looks like.  But anyway, you get the general idea.  It was a really big space, and it's our cozy "hang-out" area.  It still feels a little dark to me with all the woodwork and our dark furniture and the fireplace, but the abundance of natural light helps to balance that out a bit.  

Here's what we did:

1. took down a completely unnecessary wall that had been an addition to the room at some point.  The entire first floor feels much more open and flows better without it.  

2. Sanded and re-varnished the floor

3. Added the big, new light fixture, replacing still more fluorescents 

4. painted the walls and ceiling. 

And I think that was about it!  It was already a beautiful room, but the fluorescent lighting had to go.  I have a feeling we will spend the majority of our time in this room. 

Tomorrow I will try to show the bedroom, but we are still finishing up the closets in there, so there's a lot of clothes and shoes cluttered around the room while we finish, so I may just show half of the room.  We'll see!