Making it home – the living room

We’ve lived here for going on seven years (it is the absolute longest I have lived in one home. Ever.) It’s a beautiful home, but it’s a little snug for all of us, and there are some aspects that just don’t work (like the one little coat closet, great for 2 people, not so great for 7 and all our winter gear).

So we’ve been scratching our heads trying to come up with a way to modify the house to make it work better for us, and our budget – plans were many, affordable plans, not so much. And we finally, FINALLY, found a way to make the changes we need to make, most within the boundaries of the existing house, and all able to be completed one step at a time instead of an all at once call-a-crew-of-builders-and-take-out-a-loan project.

So, here’s what we’ve done in the living room, which really didn’t need a lot, but lack of seating space and lack of storage (I’m a book hoarder and a homeschooler, need I say more?) made things a little frustrating.  Step one was closing up a doorway between the kitchen and living room.  That gave us a new home for the refrigerator on the kitchen side.  And new storage on the living room side.  It meant tearing out a really nice built in bookcase in between the rooms (there is a chimney that separates the rooms and the bookcase was on the chimney wall).   And my amazing and very talented husband made a built-in bookcase. Not just any bookcase, but one with antique style shark-tooth shelf adjustments. It isn’t quite finished yet, but close enough that I can start moving some of our books onto it.

Then, just the other night, we were admiring the newly painted, nearly finished bookcase, and the very dark no-longer-needed brick wall was really, um, dark. And no longer needed (the woodstove needed to be replaced last year, and we opted for a coal stove in the basement). So, late in the evening we tore out the brick.

And my amazing and very talented husband added two (2!) new outlets to the wall (we’re a little short on outlets around these parts). And then my amazing and very talented husband built a raised panel wall. It is gorgeous!  So here’s what it looks like now. Well, not exactly now, because we moved some furniture around, but what it looked like then. 🙂  I still have a bit of work to do to show you a real “After” shot, but this is what we’ve been up to, so the not quite ready “after” will have to do. 🙂

For comparison, I just found a photo of the same wall from when we purchased the house (none of the furniture or decor is ours).

(I’m sure some don’t like that we painted so much and that we took out the brick, but it’s our home, so please be kind.)