Finished... ?

Have you ever looked and looked, and searched and searched for something that you know you saw within the last couple of weeks, yet you can't find it now that you want it?  Ugh! That is what happened with today's intended pictures. So frustrating! But the good news is that...

My living room is finished!

Mostly.

It has been a long-haul with the living room, beginning clear back, last year, when I built the shelf for the DVDs. And then the bookshelves. But now it is pretty much done!

So, to start out with, my living room had boring white walls, and ugly white mini-blinds. Also ugly, green couches.

I couldn't find any "before" pictures of my living room...
well, not the one I wanted. 

This is a very cute picture of Jessica, with the "before"
living room behind her.

And these are pics of the "before" living room
while it was under construction.

These pictures will give you an idea of my empty canvas, although they are not nearly as good as the one I was looking for.

Well, after the shelves were finished I decided I needed a little end table to go next to my couch. This would prevent the ottoman and the floor from collecting things like empty cups and remote controls. I got a cute little table at a second-hand store. It was mostly cute. But it had lots of gouges and scratches—including "I LOVE YOU MOM" carved into it which, I'm sure, made that mom feel very loved. The scratches were so deep that I decided I'd paint the table instead of staining and varnishing it, which would have been my first choice.

Once again, I forgot to take a picture until I'd already started working on my project. 

I did a lot of sanding, used a lot of wood-filler, and did a lot more sanding. I also tightened some screws—and put in a few more—to keep it from wobbling. I painted the table with the paints for the bookshelf and the wall around the bookshelf, but I've never been sure about it...it looks like it would be super-cute in a little girl's room.

Then we planted our garden. And then we painted the living room.

the same color as the hallway-side bookshelf wall

No more white walls! Yay!

We made a custom clock for the east wall:

I think the compass points and the fancy hands make it hard to read. I wonder if painting the hands bronzey/brassy
or maybe coppery would help...

We decided that the south wall needed some family pictures... But what I really wanted was a family tree. So we projected a nice tree onto the wall, and I traced it and painted it (time for us to bewail the misplacement of a really good photo of me painting a tree onto the wall). 

Lindsey is not sprouting a tree out of her head;
it is painted on the wall.

I had originally bought a bunch of picture frames at the thrift store, but I realized pretty quickly that they would 1. cover up way too much of my tree, and 2. take up space that I'd rather use for pictures. So we printed up a bunch of photos and mounted them onto hardboard and foam-core board and used sticky-tack to put them up. :-)

Then I had a short bout of laziness. 

And then I made the curtains for the windows. They are pinch-pleated, and have drawstrings and everything. No more ugly mini-blinds!

This picture in my files is titled: Too many devices.
But don't look at that. You are supposed to notice the "Before"—white walls, white mini-blinds, and green couches. Particularly
the blinds. You can notice my attractive kids, too.

Here's a better "before" picture of that wall.

This is actually a picture of my chair, in progress.
But you can see the curtains on the wall.

Then we did the couches. And then lots of canning. And finally the chair and ottoman.

Here is the chair, still in progress. I had originally intended to make the chair blue—just to break up the brownness of the living room. And then I started wondering if that would just be weird—
this BLUE chair in the middle of everything. I do have yards of brown fabric left, and I could have done it brown.
But we decided to go with the blue.
Behind the chair you can see my fabulous ottoman, and the first use of the elephant fabric that I fell in love with in the beginning.
Again, I debated brown or blue for the top of the ottoman,
but the brown just made it look really boring.
And a blue ottoman gave me a tie to the chair, right?

The very last project to be completed was the cornice board. It was pretty easy to make, although I did have a few puzzles to solve (mostly how to hang it up...).

the back of the cornice board—it's almost finished
What you don't see, and will never see, is that under the elephant fabric on the front side I used two layers of horrible, purple,
minky-fleece to pad it.

And now I'm going to take a break and tell you how wonderful that elephant fabric is. It is gorgeous in every way. It feels fabulous, and the colors are rich, and it was woven so that you could sew it end-to-end without any waste (it connects perfectly in the middle of an elephant). I knew I loved this fabric from the moment I saw it!

Love this fabric!
I wasn't sure about the tassels...Even though they match the green wall and the blue chair, and would pull those colors into another part of the room, they did look a little too bright for my beloved elephants. But, as with the chair, I decided to forge ahead.

OK. Now that you know how fabulous the fabric is...

I sewed the tassels on by hand—all 11 1/2 feet of them!

A sneak preview:

Of the four yards of tassels, I had nine tassels left: four brown,
three blue, and two green.

Well, Bruce and I got the cornice board hung up. It really gives the curtain a finished look—and I'm glad I used the tassels.

Oh...wait. I was wrong! The cornice board wasn't the very last thing done. Once it was hung up, I had my two throw-pillows to make. I'd gotten a couple from my neighbor, who was moving, so all I had to do was re-cover them, and pad them out a little more.

before and after pillows

blue on the backs, to tie in with the chair

And that's it. Well, almost it. I do have some lovely fabric for sheers to hang under the curtains. I'm undecided about them...which means I'll probably make them and hang them up and love them. But if I don't love them in the living room, I'll use them in my bedroom. I also have this strange little closet space to fix up (it's not going to be a closet). Maybe I'll make that it's own post.

Anyway, here are the before (sort of) and afters:

Before

After

with the curtains closed
Still don't know about the white and green table.
Mostly I don't think about it...

...although I'd like to keep a plant on it.

the whole room, as you see it when you come in the front door

So, that's it! I could use some artwork on a couple of walls, but we are hoping our talented kids will take care of that...  Or I will have to look around. And, if you look at the clock pic, Little Red Riding Hood isn't going to live in the living room. I'd replace her with a small globe or something. Maybe another plant (Because I am soooo fabulous with houseplants...)

Anyway, I'm pleased with the way it all turned out. :-)