Apr
4
Let’s paint the living room, we said. The color is old and the walls are chipped and scuffed and it’ll be nice to start over with a clean slate! Maybe a neutral color will lighten up the room a bit!
Why is that when I think about painting, I never think of moving furniture, pulling things off walls, filling in nail holes, rolling up rugs, removing things from shelves, and choking on the deadly plumes of dust that apparently coat every lesser-used surface of my house?
Anyway, what do you guys think? Ignore the vagina couch, I’m just counting down the days until I can shove it into the backyard and riddle it with bullet holes.
BEFORE:
AFTER:
I like it!
Looks good! If you ever decide to move you got a head start on the staging, too!
It’s bright and beautiful!
love it! that antique chair looks great too. (as does your color-coded book arrangement. i always think i need to do that, but
when the non-fiction and fiction and short stories and biographies all start to co-mingle, i have a type-A panic attack.)
Looks so much more open! Very nice.
Love it! Also love the blurred child in the foreground :) And maybe more art above the book case? I’m trying to get up the gumption to paint my living room too, but not quite there yet. And I love your giant windows!
Nice, gives the illusion of a larger room. You should go with a glass door fireplace screen to give a cleaner line down that wall. Plus it’s way more efficient.
LOVE IT! Amazing what a new color will do for a room. Or a head of hair for that matter.
It’s beautiful! I love it.
Beautiful. But…did you sell your children? Shouldn’t the floor be littered with legos and dolls and books an plastic egg halves? Or have you not surrendered the living room as thoroughly as I have?
Elizabeth: what is UP with the plastic egg halves? I swear I pick them up and toss them EVERY DAY and the next morning there are MORE. Where do they keep coming from? Easter, a full year ago??? IS SOMETHING HATCHING OMG
I love your ceilings!
I likey.
that is SUCH a beautiful room- the windows, the ceiling, and yes– the color is perfect. (and I’m so jealous of how clean it is!)
WOW! Very nice! i like how the new color makes the room look bigger. I just painted my kitchen cabinets and didn’t stop to think about the hardware and removing the doors so yeah, I know what you mean. But…the results were so worth it, right?
Looks great. Good artwork. Are you re-listing the house this spring?
Also: Blurry child in the ‘before’ shot gives the room a Paranormal Activity vibe. I seriously missed that the first time I looked.
I LOVE it. It looks so clean and bright and happy.
Love it!
I am going to be a rebel and say I liked it the old way better.
Love it!
Agreeing with Oregongurl – I liked it the other way. I think the furniture along with the walls are too.. cream. You do have pops of color in the artwork and books but I feel you need something ground level to pop.
Well I love the red color in the before photo, and my first thought was why would you paint over that? But the lighter color is a lot less aggressive, and I think the room looks bigger.
Loved the red, love this also! Nothing is better than fresh paint, so clean!
I liked the reddy wall, but it does look brighter and I like the print you have up there :)
LIKE–Before AND After. But the after does seem soothing.
Is the painting over the mantel new? It’s a nice proportion for the wall, and I like how it amplifies the new color scheme in the room. I also think the furniture swap you did complements the color, and it really makes the coffee table look new, even though it’s not.
It looks so bright and spring-y/summer-y! I bet it’ll look warm and clean in the winter too.
I did love the red… but I ‘get’ needing a change and spring is coming to Seattle! Yay!
I really like the after! I think the next move is to figure out what goes above the bookcase.
Then new perfectly chosen sleek furniture to complement the new look! :) And flying ponies, too, no doubt, with everyone’s budgets in the suck-hole! Sigh. Nice work guys!
Do you really not have any window coverings? How do you get privacy from neighbors?
And I like before AND after, but after also looks brighter and happier! :)
I must admit I did love the red wall and the branch. I can’t believe how different the room looks now, really nice.
We never even painted when we moved into our house almost 12 years ago. The reason why we still haven’t done it is because of all the extra work that has to go into it.
I liked the red, too, but I love the new color for the summer – makes the room look so much bigger, suddenly. I LOVE that ceiling!
Since you can’t move right now, does it truly feel like you have a new space?
It’s beautiful! The red was really pretty, but this new color makes the whole room look twice as big.
I was just thinking this morning as I was painting my face “I wonder what Sundry is up to? She hasn’t posted anything lately. Did I miss a post?” Apparently painting is the answer and it looks great!! Yes, I too have thought, I want to paint this room…all I need is paint and a roller. I forget about all the prep AND clean up. It sucks! But the end result…Divine!
I also loved the red, but after living with it for several years I’d have wanted a fresh look too, and I live the new color you chose! The room definitely looks bigger.
Gorgeous! It looks straight from Home and Garden magazine!
Bigger, brighter, lighter! Love it!
Love it, it seems brighter. My only suggestion woudl be to hand something on the wall behind the bookshelves – it looks a bit … empty there. Other than that, the roo looks so much brighter and crispier!
Nooooooo! I liked the red wall!!!
Seriously. What have you done with the children? Produce photographic evidence that you haven’t sold them on the black market ASAP. That room is entirely too clean!! I love both rooms, really. You’re inspiring me to find my living room painting mojo. Someday. What color did you use for the walls? It really brightened up the space!
Very nice! I enjoy the actual painting part, but all the prep work can kiss my ass.
Love! And I’m so jealous of your windows, I could spit. (I wouldn’t, though. That’s gross.)
I think it looks lovely and respect you for painting your own walls. Five years ago I went on a binge – steamed the wallpaper off the dining room (never again) repainted, repainted our bedroom, repainted our son’s room, and repainted the living room and then that was that. Find even all of these years later I am totally incapable of painting another room in my home. Subsequently my husband painted the nursery, REpainted the living room, and painted our entry way and now he’s burned out too. So, the next time we need fresh paint our choices are (1) pay someone else to paint or (2) burn the place down.
Oh, MRW, retract that respect — we didn’t do the actual painting, we hired it out. The last room I painted was a tiny bathroom and I hate every single second of it, no WAY was I going to tackle the living room (and Dylan’s room too).
Gretchen: it’s Benjamin Moore’s Powell Buff.
Looks very nice! The artwork above the fireplace works really well with the room. I’m envious of all the windows!
However, do my tired old eyes detect Twilight books on the bottom right of that bookcase? (Just wondering, not accusing. I have them, too!)
I think it looks great – the new painting is very classy, too.
Also – props (do people still say that?) on the color-coded bookshelve. That looks cool.
Looks great! I so need to do this in our house, but I hatehatehate painting. I’d rather refinish floors. I can’t really justify the expense of hiring someone because the paint is actually fine in the two rooms I want to repaint – I’m just sick of it. This looks like a staging shot … is your house going back on the market? If yes, this shot will help sell it for sure!
I like both, but I’d like the second if it had the branch….
My kids are in their thirties, and I am still finding easter egg halves. THEY NEVER GO AWAY!!!!
Love it. The lighter wall color really helps the gorgeous ceiling stand out. And you somehow managed to make it feel big, spacious and airy with the darker ceiling! Bravo.
Have you thought of putting the clock back up or something else in its place over the bookcase? I love the editing you did, but the chair and bookcase are the same height and it looks a little one note on that wall. You have such nice variation on the wall with the fireplace (built in, new picture), that it makes the absence of variation there a bit more noticeable. Just a thought.
I admit that the new color makes the room look bigger, and the room seems brighter overall. Still, I’m sorry to say that I prefer the red wall & the other furniture. I thought it made the room more interesting, dramatic, and unusual. And a bit cozier. But I am partial to bold use of color on walls, so I’m probably weird like that.
Getting ready to sell…again? Our realtor had us paint everything a neutral color when we were getting ready to sell our house.