Living room Decor

Two years ago...the day before Thanksgiving, we purchased my grandparents home.  Certainly, I never dreamed that that would happen, but it was the right thing and the perfect timing financially for us.  Sadly, I took hundered of pictures of our remodel, before and afters...and about 9 months ago our computer crashed.  We always send copies of all our picture to my father in law, but apparently we were waiting to send those files until we were finished with a couple projects, so we lost all our house project pictures.

In the end, I am grateful that it was those pictures and not the pictures of my sons first 3 weeks that we lost.  My son was born Nov 2, 2012 (which I might add, I had an emergency c-section for that deliver because his heart stopped.), we closed on our home on Nov. 21, 2012 (while I was still healing), they hadn't finished cleaning out the house so we took three days to do that, we extensively moved walls, all flooring, base boards, all new paint, two new closets, all few lighting...by ourselves...all the while fixing up our rental, packing to move and moved in Dec. 23, 2012.  Yep, day before Christmas.  I did manage in our move to remember where I put all our Christmas presents, the tree and our santa hats.  At some point I will try and find a picture of Christmas Eve.  It was a pretty significant day of our lives.  I also have to add that...and don't freak out...I went back to full time work the Monday after Thanksgiving.  We both have hourly jobs and we couldn't do without my income for an entire month.  I sit at a piano, so it was ok.  Nothing too strenuous.  Being a mom with a 2 1/2 yr old is probably more work post surgery than playing the piano.  

Two years ago for my birthday I started this living room redo.  I have never loved stripes.  However, I found the striped fabric for my pillows for $2 a yard in the clearance section of the home decor store.  Ya, I couldn't pass it up.  I wanted to redo the pillows forever.  When we bought the couch I really didn't like the southwestern pattern.  After having a child I learned how horrible those strings on the edge of the pillows are.  We lost the pictures of the redo when our computer crashed, however, the picture of madalynn lying on the couch gives you a complete view of what the pillows were before.  I added rope to the edge of the pillow.  I kept the backsides of each of the pillows.  Russ helped me stuff the pillows...and I LOVE THEM.  I did them two years ago and I have loved them since.

In the living room my grandma had floor to ceiling rose colored curtains.  They were attached on a track on the ceiling with a pull chord.  There were shear curtains underneath the thick light blocking, heat maintaining rose curtains.  There was a long discussion about whether we would use them or not, but eventually my worry about having young kids in the home with a pull string curtain won out and we got rid of them.  Because of the curtains my grandparents didn't have blinds on the window.  For the first year we lived her we had a sheet permanently stapled to the front window.  After a while I couldn't handle that, so I took out the staples on the side and would pull it together and tie it in the middle during the day.  So.....I took to selling a few of the things in our home on KSL last fall, went to Home Depot, got a swinging deal on custom sized blinds (like 40% off, they were having a sale!!!), got them installed and the sheet went back in the cupboard.  Russ told me that he would install them if I got to making curtains.  I went shopping, but never found exactly what I was looking for.  I did however, buy extra long curtain rods for next to nothing in JoAnn's clearance section last fall.  Russ got the rod holder installed on the wall and they were attached alone to the wall for MANY months.  (This is the reason that I finally got the push to finish the curtains.  I got sick of looking at them.)

So one day this summer, I was sick of working hard and still not having enough money to do things.  It was just a harder than normal struggle this summer.  I picked up a couple new piano students and told Russ that their first months payment would pay for the curtains.  I went to Home Fabrics in Orem, walked around with my kids in the cart (ugh!!! They were awful) with two of my couch pillows (because seriously there are soooooo many shades of green), and determined I would not leave until I had enough fabric.  I found some stripes that looked pretty good with the pillows and I bought valence fabric that I have viewed and loved for years.  When I first went to make living room curtains in our last rental, I looked at paisley prints with green and brown A LOT.  I am so happy that I end up buying it several years later.

Well, the end of the story is....I picked out the fabric and sewed up the curtains for the rest of the day.  I love it.  Winter has now started and they block the cold without any problems.  I used a Jo Ann's gift card from one of my previous bdays to purchase all the grommets.  Last month when I was making my Halloween pillows I used the rest of the valence fabric and covered two other pillow forms for the couch.  I am glad I was able to tie everything together.  I have one of the table runners I made for our bedroom years ago on the end table right next to the couches and seriously, it couldn't match better.  

Hope you enjoyed.