The Living Room - Before and After

My apologies for it taking me so long for this post to finally appear.  Suffice it to say, I have been technically challenged.  First with camera issues (solved by purchasing my new Nikon) and then by a laptop that died a slow death.  When it rains it pours....so off to purchase a new laptop that I am now adjusting to.  Trying not to be too sad about some of the files lost but not having everything backed up and moving on.

As promised to YH - finally a post of the reveal of the LR.  Hurray!  Odd but when rooms come together over time, you often forget how bad they looked when you begin. I give you a couple of before shots, just so you can appreciate how far it's come.

The day I first saw the room - it looked like this.  I wish I could find the picture that I had of when the renters were here (lost with my laptop crash) because it really looked very sad.

Another angle - shot from the fireplace wall

And now a few after shots:

A few extra shots just for good measure....

And for those that may be wondering about this aspect of the mantle arrangement:

Many years ago I ordered a series of letters and started putting inspirational words on display for the kids to see.  A twisted traditional began with my oldest son almost always

coming in and changing the inspirational word to something like "nerd", "rad", "dumb"...getting the idea here.  Flash forward a couple of decades and a few mantles later and I decide to again put theinspirational words on display for the twins.  Oldest son comes over and again does his routine of the change up of the word - and now guess who's carrying on the tradition? Yep....the twins.  The other day I came out to find the word "mule".  Guess the good news is that they are challenged to think of new words with the limited amount of letters we have left in the series.  So the family tradition continues in a fun and entertaining way and it's always obvious which are the words I choose and which are the funny words they choose.

For the record, other than the paint and the drapery panels, there was not much cost in pulling this room together.  I had everything from previous homes and lives.  Guess the real question really should be why the hell did it take me so long to get it pulled together.

Hope you enjoyed the post...post a comment and let me know what you think.

Off to play golf.  Hmmmm..... maybe that's why I'm not getting these rooms done as quickly as I should be!