Tackle It Tuesday #16 - Living Room

Today's tackle is actually something that we did over the weekend. See, we found ourselves at home on Saturday with no plans, since we'd originally thought that we would be in Detroit that day. Ron had the day off and we enjoyed a nice, quiet morning at home with the kids. Then the talk turned to what we could do - a good opportunity to get some things done around the house that we'd been talking about or that needed to get done. We were a bit ambitious and never did get to the outdoor stuff - the leaves still cover our lawn, hoses and other things need to get put away for the winter and the grass needs one good final mowing. But we did get one big project done and it made a huge difference in our house.

When we moved into this house, every room was painted white (with very dark wood trim - can you say 70's decor!). I quickly painted both of the girls' bedrooms the day before we moved, and we painted the kitchen and stairway about a year later. Two years ago when we remodeled our basement, we bought paint for the living room but had never had the chance to actually get the painting done.

Until Saturday.

We had to move things around in our living room anyway - last year after Christmas, we turned everything around 180 degrees but that arrangement left no room for the Christmas tree this year. So on Saturday we moved everything back around to where it was before. And as long as we were doing that anyway, we decided to go ahead and paint.

The difference is dramatic and now we're wishing we'd taken the time years ago to finish the room. It feels like an actual living room now instead of a bunch of furniture thrown together in a space.

Here's an idea of what it looked like before (this is from before we turned everything around to face the other direction):


And here's a few from last year while everything was switched around - you can kind of get the idea anyway...


We'd made a little hallway behind the sectional, from the front door to the kitchen...


This is from Becca's first birthday party back in January - you can see how the walls are stark white and all of the furniture is different shades of brown and looks kind of thrown together...


Here are photos from Saturday while we were painting and moving furniture. We ended up doing two walls (the walls on either side of the front door) in a darker color, kind of a beige-gold color and the other two walls in a lighter tan color.

Starting off...

Ron did all of the painting (I wasn't feeling well and was keeping the kids occupied, along with the help of way too much television. I did help with touch-ups though).

Moving furniture - yes we had a lot of knick-knacks and toys and 'junk' to put away and find other homes for as well...

You can kind of see a little bit in this next one - we had half of the couch in the kitchen all day, which made getting around a bit difficult.

It's amazing what you find under the couch when you move it - cat toys, kids' toys, and other assorted junk... And yes - Ron did vacuum! :)

And here are the 'after' shots - it's a bit hard to see the color because of the lamp, but it looks amazing. We can't believe the difference!

A well-deserved rest (it was past midnight when we finished the room)... The funky spots on the walls are from the lamp throwing odd shadows and angles of light.

What are you tackling this week? And check out other Tackle It Tuesday posts over at 5 Minutes for Mom!