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Hello Friends! Coming in late again! We had so many troubles getting the right flooring, and then trying to decide if we could do it all, our sweet little old lady kitty Lucy died last week and with family social activities and real life explosions every so often, it took me longer than usual to get my head into the Challenge, and then I missed posting on time last week by 5 minutes! But I do love a good challenge, especially this one, so here we are!
Welcome to another One Room Challenge so generously hosted by Linda @oneroomchallenge.com and sponsored by Better Homes and Gardens. We are so privileged to join the fun as guest participants. This time mom and I are doing a refresh on our living room and dining rooms. I know I just did the dining room in Spring 2017, but the two rooms adjoin each other, and new flooring and some new decor is coming into both rooms, so it’s getting added in to the ORC challenge this time again too!
So where to start this makeover story? Well, I guess I’ll start at the very beginning. Last January we rescued a huge, dirty, old white slipcovered sectional off the curb from a craigslist ad.
We were both sick with the flu at the time, but it was one of those “I’m feeling a little bit better today and the sun is shining warm and bright, so let’s go take a ride in the country and look at it” kind of moments. To be honest the slipcovers were absolutely filthy, but there was no sign of bugs, the under couch was in pristine condition and I knew the slip covers could be bleached and bleached again, so we loaded it up and brought her home.
After two soak and two wash cycles for each cover they actually came out better than I thought they would.
The original plan was to use the sectional outside on the lanai, but once we sat down on her wonderfully comfy feather wrapped memory foam cushions we knew she was destined for the living room. The only problem is, shes too big! Our home is small, so the livingroom is small and the el part of the window seat in the livingroom complicates things. Its just about 9 inches too long for the sectional to all fit together. So one of the projects of this challenge will be to take the el out of the window seat and just make it be a straight window seat, so that we can fit our huge, super comfy, did I mention free, sectional into our small living room!
Our home has a beachy cottagy kind of decor vibe. I love Serena and Lilly and I’ve been dreaming about Ralph Lauren florals this fall, so my idea for this round is a mix of the two styles. Both designers have beautiful beach house decor and our white slipcovered sectional and old leather chairs already fit the Lauren/Lilly mix, and the lapis, sandstone stripe and dark navy floral fabrics should go nicely with the vibe! To help keep the blues mixing and to brighten the navy floral fabric I’ve been painting some golden petunias blue. I’ve also got some more blues, a linen blend, a dark chenille and some velvet fabric that I want to add in too.
We started on the new flooring last week. It’s a beautiful acacia engineered hardwood from lumberliquidators.com. It took us 4 days to lay the dining room flooring, but it’s in, the baseboards are back up, the transition boards are in, and everything is looking so beautiful!
We decided to take a week off from flooring and rest up a bit as the livingroom is twice as big as the dining room and we also needed a break from the house being in chaos. The dining room furniture is back in so theres now room to move the livingroom furniture out.
Our livingroom doesn’t have good lighting. It’s open and airy with vaulted very tall ceilings which we love, but there’s nothing overhead, so we’re adding in some sconces that I’ve had for years and I’ve got a wild idea, I’m not exactly sure how to make it fly, but if we can figure that out I think it might be kind of amazing!
I have absolutely fallen in love with the instant power of wallpaper the past couple of challenges, and we’ve got wallpaper for the entry way wall that connects these two spaces. It’s a large open, very pretty blue and white vintage Scandinavian pattern, and I think it’ll be sort of gorgeous on that wall! I just have 2 double rolls that I ordered last spring, it was all they had then, but in my recalculating I was concerned that I might not have enough, so I checked again and it was back in stock, so I’ve got another one coming on super fast shipping from the UK. Hopefully it’ll actually get here next week!
The public rooms of our house are almost like a gunshot house, as all the rooms sort of line up in a row. The livingroom in the front if the house, the entry area and dining room are like one space, then the kitchen and small family room are at the back. I say this because all of these areas are getting new and improved decor soon, so that they all flow together a little more. If I’m able to finish those few projects along with the challenge projects I might include those rooms in the final 6 week reveal too.
We’ve got so much to do in the next 4 weeks! Thank goodness for prayer, cooler weather and unlimited supplies of coffee! Thank you friends so much for stopping by and joining mum and I on our diy adventures! Much love to you all and happy autumn dear friends!!
NEW PAIR OF WINGS 