Livingroom Updates

Over the holiday weekend I finally finished some livingroom updates. You already saw the end tables that we bought for $75 after I sold our old ones for $80. Those are in our livingroom now and are working out great. Now I originally wanted to paint them, because um I like to paint things, but for now Pascal isn't letting me. The wood is in such good condition I was even hesitant to paint them and Pascal likes the wood. I argued that we don't really have any wood in the livingroom and he reminded me that everything doesn't have to match which was part of the reason I sold our black end tables...touche. So we are going to work on bringing more wood tones into the room. We already would like to get a wood/metal/industrial coffee table (like this, this, or this) but we just need to find one that's not $300 or DIY one?

The next update to the room were some pictures that I bought from Etsy a month ago. I think Etsy is awesome but I get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of art on there and don't know where to start. I was just browsing all types of art and found a shop (Sea Shore Prints) that did blueprints of major cities. I really like the look of blueprints so decided to get the Baltimore and Washington D.C prints. The size I wanted for one of them actually wasn't listed but I sent the shop owner a message and he responded right away and added the option! The prints were $13 each plus shipping and were shipped out the next day. The shop had great customer service so I would recommend them and I think all the different pictures would make great gifts. My only complaint was that although the pictures shipped right away they took almost 2 weeks to get to me instead of a week but I think that was out of the shop owner's control.

This picture is a bit blurry

So I have had these pictures for a month but finally got around to getting frames over the weekend when we made a trip to Ikea...dangerous! We were there for 2.5 hours...we did also eat breakfast. They have breakfast for 99 cents! Seriously, I could live there. Anyway, while there we picked up two of the Ribba frames. The only thing I don't like is the measurements of Ikea's frames are a little off. Instead of being 11x14 its 11.5x15 so the mat doesn't quite fit the picture. I wanted to buy the black frame because, um, all our frames in that room are black, but Pascal convinced me to get the "metal" ones.

I ended up using the gray insert as part of the mat as well since the included one was slightly too big. Am I the only one who has trouble framing a picture? It makes me unnecessarily angry. The back was hard to open and close and getting the picture straight inside took me forever even with using tape. I am inside swearing and sweating over this while Pascal is outside just, you know, re-shingling our shed.

I hung them on either side of our window in the livingroom and moved our old pictures. So our last update for the livingroom was the couch. When we first bought our couch the plan was to get the chaise to attach to it. But then I got nervous about it and we just bought a different chaise cover and kept it separate. While I really liked that the chaise was a different color and added some more dimension to the room, we just didn't use it that much. And I knew that we would use it more if it was part of the couch. So we finally broke down and bought the matching chaise cover knowing that we can always change it back if we want. Amazingly enough I actually still had all the pieces to attach it from when we bought the couch two years ago. 

It is already the new favorite spot in the house. On the downside, there is a lot more beige (although technically the couch is light gray) in the living room and the couch looks gigantic (which it is). But the comfort and function are worth it. Also, you can't even tell the difference between the old cover and the new cover which shows how great it has held up since I literally am on this couch every single day. At the Ikea store you can tell some of the other, thinner, covers don't hold up as well but ours still looks brand new. We have the Kivik couch with the light gray Teno cover.

Here is a before picture and then the afters.