So, Here is the Family Room...

...also known as the Macaroni and Cheese Room for obvious reasons. The redecorating of this room started more than a year ago when we ripped up a hearth that took up all the room that is not tiled (floor to ceiling!)--it was four feet deep and it was all for that little gas-that-looks-like-wood-burning stove. Then Superman had to travel a lot for work and we stopped. I shoved the shelves in place before he got to finish the drywall and it remained that way until very recently. Now, we've added the price of orange paint to our cost, so we're still doing pretty well. Next, we'll add ceramic tile to finish up the floor. (We debated replacing the flooring with something else, but the great flood quickly changed our minds...ceramic tile came through just fine!) After that, I think we'll be done.

This is where we are so far:

This is the view from the doorway and I think I'm pretty pleased (finally) with the furniture layout. To your left is the desk from upstairs and it is my desk. (This kids used to have a desk that ran along the left wall, but we shifted everything to get my desk into this room.) The couch is where the television used to be.


My desk still has piles of stuff on it and around it that I need to a) find a place for or b) get rid of. I'm hoping I'll be able to go with b) get rid of and I've committed to myself that there will be no stashing or stuffing. I must touch the stuff and consciously deal with it.

The television was moved to the corner and placed on the corner unit that lived in our bedroom (even though we no longer had a television in there). As you can see, Superman never painted behind the shelves, so he'll need to finish the drywall and paint the newly exposed wall. While they don't look too bad in this photo, these shelves are cluttered! Seriously cluttered, so I've begun dealing with that. Same thing: a) put it where it belongs or b) get rid of it. I'm hoping to come up with some clever ways to deal with my craft stuff, while keeping it accessible. Fabric is tough! (notice the pile on the floor to the right of the shelf--all my stuff).

Finally, this is now the kids' school desk (the couch used to be on this wall and the television was where the couch is now). I love the way their school books and their computer CPUs fit inside the bathroom vanities (!) we used to hold the melamine desk top up. This desk used to be in Buttercup's room and the desktop needs to be longer for the two of them to share. For now, however, they just need to deal.

So far, I am liking the way this room is evolving. I love that the stove and television are no longer the focal points of the room. I love the way the kids can really truly clean up their school work at the end of each day. I love the way we can all be in the same room doing different things and still feel together.

I know I talked a lot about fabrics, but I decided that really wasn't the problem (which is why I couldn't make myself sew anything...I guess I knew better). Red, black, and white go really well in this macaroni and cheese room. The blinds, which came with the house, set the stage and I like red, as is evidenced by the red rug and the red accessories on the shelves, the red sewing machine covers I've made over the years, and the red throw. Now that the furniture arrangement flows, the colors seem just right. The black adds a bit of drama and the white keeps it crisp. So, what do you think? (Oh, I know many of you could live in a macaroni and cheese room, but how do you think it is coming together?)

The Dining Room is Done

...but I haven't made much progress on the Family Room....sigh.

Here is the completed Dining Room. I am really pleased and, while I'm still not 100% in favor of the current cushion covers, they're really fine for summer. I figure once I'm done with them, I'll use them on the patio to cover those cushions, so they'll get plenty of use. I'm looking to find a nice red fabric with texture or depth that doesn't look "country" or "velour". (I know what I mean, even ifI didn't explain it well.)

It is difficult to convey spatial qualities and perspective in photos, but the room feels roomy without feeling empty. Everyone feels as if they can lean back, scoot out, and generally stretch out without bumping something--even with the table fully extended (which it is not in the photos). We used the same shelves in a different arrangement and actually ended up leaving out one of the pictures. (I thought Superman would cry when he put molly bolts into the walls he'd just patched and painted.) We added the gymnast, which my dad just sent last week, and the recessed lighting lands right on her at night. We managed to keep it "dressed up" without making it stuffy by keeping the whimsy (yes, those are dinosaurs on the floor - they used to be my mom's) and mixing it throughout the room. All in all, it works for us.

Phew! Now if I can just figure out what to do with the Family Room!

The Dining Room - Still Working on It!

So, if you read the previous post, you know I cannibalized two leather chairs from the dining room to complete the living room. (Mr. R was kind enough to pretend to sleep after his Father's Day dinner to demonstrate just how comfortable these chairs really are. Wasn't that nice of him?)

Admittedly, the chairs shouldn't have been in the dining room, but since we turned our designated living room into our dining room, it was the only room they'd fit into.

Now, what will we do with the dining room now that we've taken those huge chairs out of it?


This was the dining room before. Functional and attractive (at least to my eye), but crowded when it came to holiday dinners and Game Night. I'm excited to have the chairs out of there, but thinking we'll be struggling with the room for awhile. This is the plan so far:

Placed this neat little table on the wall where the chairs had been, took down the wall shelves on the two walls, and shifted the buffet, the red rug, and the dining room table to be more centered in the room. Right now we're thinking that the wall with the fish picture will get two shelves back up, but the wall with the flower picture won't. But maybe I should put the shelves on either side of that picture, too? I can't decide.
I love being able to put my extra chairs in the dining room, but I don't have fabric to recover those two cushions, so my search continues (plus, I loved the fabric I made the seat covers out of, but I'm not sure I love it in the room...I think it is too busy). It just isn't working for me. What do you think?



So, this is the second room my little idea messed up. Notice all the spackle? Because of our cats (remember this?), the shelves were extremely well-anchored into the walls and removing them left big holes. Poor Superman!

The Living Room/Den - Before and After

Okay, so this was the room that got us started. It is two steps down from the main level. I wanted to move this desk out of the room. (This picture is before the couch came into the room, but gives you a good idea how much desk we're talking about.)


As you can see, having the couch in the room with the desk really gave me no room. As the picture shows, the couch was literally butted up against the edge of the desk in order to give us any room at all.

Additionally, I was making the mistake of having the fireplace corner/television be the focal point of the room because I was intimidated by the diagonal wall. (I couldn't move the television, which is in place of the non-working fireplace insert, because this is where the grown-ups watch movies. Remember, we have no television at our house.)

Pulling the desk out of the room allowed us to put the two pieces of the sectional back together. We tucked them into the corner and brought the coffee table into position. We got rid of the rug I had needed to help create a seating area before. This is the view from behind the leather chair, as you walk in from the laundry room.


Then we still had tons of space to fill and had not yet created a conversation area, so we brought the leather chairs out of the dining room (weird, but we had no other place for them) and put them in the room as well. (Sorry for the bad light...the colors in the first "after" picture are closer to true...the throws are red and the pillows on the leather chairs are tan suede.) This is the view from the top of the steps.


We're really pleased with this room so far. What do you think? We'd like some different art on the wall above the couch, but aren't spending the money on it right now. Any ideas?