Creating a Cottage Living Room out of a Dark Pit of Despair!!!!!

Or.....How My Niece and Nephew Get Free Decorating.....

Since Fall is finally here, I thought I would start showing you a new project.

I've been working on Miriam and Ross's living room since early last winter.

If you don't know who Miriam and Ross are.....

they are my niece and her hubby.

Remember what I did in her dining room?????

Let's see the before and after, so you can anticipate the living room transformation.

I still need to make slip covers for the chairs at the end of the table.

I'll do it sometime this fall.....

really!!!!!

Looking at the picture above, makes me tempted to paint the table top.

It's not in the best condition, being a Craig's List find, and a lattice pattern may be just the ticket.......hmmmm.......

Sooooooo.......

here's the before shots of their living room.

As you can see.....

they don't clean up until the room is nicely decorated.

I must admit, I'm the same way.

The white patches on the walls are from new insulation that they had installed all around the house.

This is the wall opposite the fireplace.

This is just behind the leather chair...

This shot is with my wide angle lens.

and here's a shot the other way...

Soooooo.....

they arranged the room the way they saw it arranged by the previous owners.

They placed the sofa between the two doors from the hall and set the TV in the corner.

This way, they could see the fireplace and the TV at the same time.

They're very talented!!!!!

I can only look at one thing at a time.

My eyes both look in the same direction.

Sooooo.....

I tried to draw you a floor plan, from looking at the old pictures, to show you how the furniture was arranged before I got my hands on this room.

The problems they faced in this space are really common.

Most people don't know how to handle a long narrow room.

Luckily, being the genius I am.....

I know what to do!!!!!

Arranging the furniture this way accentuates the narrowness of the room, by placing the bulkiest piece along the long wall elongating the space.

Making it look long.

Longer.

Longest.

The room was also painted a drab brown darkish color, which doesn't help in an already dark room.

So,

the first thing to do in a situation like this.....

is what you always should do first!!!!!

Do a floor plan.

Think of a floor plan as the skeleton of the room.

If a body don't got a skeleton.....

then there is nothing to hang the clothes on!!!!!

I wanted to foreshorten the space to make it feel wider and bigger.

To do this, I placed a pair of chairs perpendicular to the fireplace, jutting out into the room.

Having the bulkier piece (sectional) down at one end also worked at cropping into the space, making it feel wider.

I also wanted to choose furniture pieces that were a better scale for the room.

The leather chair was so large that there wasn't room for another chair.

I found a pair of smaller arm chairs on the always helpful and wonderful Craig's List.

One of my clients' (ha!) requirements was wanting to be able to watch TV in a reclining position.

The other client.....wanted a sectional.....

I was a leetle concerned about how to fit a sectional in such a small narrow room.....

But being the pro I is.....

I figured it out, and gave them everything they asked for.....

(except facing the TV and fireplace at the same time.....)

Then I drew elevations of all the walls, so that our fearless carpenter, Nigel, could cottagize it by adding a baton panel detail and a built in bookcase for the TV.

Here's the bookcase.

Soooooo

to give you guys a little teaser of what's to come, let me show you a picture of how far we've gotten.

We still have a ways to go, but it's really coming along, and the youngsters are very happy.

We need to put the white slipcover on the sectional, but they want to wait for the ones I'm making for the chairs........

Oy.

Purla the wonder dog is very happy with the changes.

On that note,

Latah, Gatah