Living Room Update!

It's a bit of a story of how we got to this point . . . but stick with me and I'll explain it all.

Back Story:
We have an additional 900 square feet in our basement, it fully finished (with really ugly carpet) but it is totally unused. And in case you are thinking that's where we hide the junk . . . you'd be wrong. Our basement is completely EMPTY! Like echo-y filled, ride your bike around in circles, Empty! In this post I shared our basement steps and hallway, I also shared where we were hoping to put a small home gym. The home gym plans were dropped because our gym is now 24 hour so it seemed kind of silly to have a 24 hour gym 15 blocks away and a home gym.

So we decided the room at the bottom of the steps should be a small movie room/video games/ surround sound/ other things I'm not that into ;). haha Lee loved the idea of a small room with surround sound, because of our vaulted ceilings upstairs surround sound wouldn't work that well (you can see the disappointment on my face, right?? ;)

Main Story: 
We always planned on moving our existing sofa downstairs when we were ready to tackle a bit of a living room redo. That "redo" came a little faster than expected when we found our new sofa on clearance at Homesense for $240! It was marked down from it's original $999 Homesense price tag, and it was made in America!  I couldn't believe we snagged a new sofa for $240! That's less than we paid for our secondhand sofa!

I always knew that I wanted the living room arranged with the sofa facing the fireplace . . . but with our HUGE 107 inch sofa it didn't leave enough room to comfortably make your way around (here's a post from when we first moved in and the sofa was in front of the fireplace). But now with our new smaller 75 inch long sofa it fits with so much room to move around!

So with every new purchase there is a "ripple effect" the sofa being in a new spot now means that we can't fit both large wingback chairs. Which was fine because we were able to move one into the nursery. But then we had the small rocking chair from the nursery leftover, so I brought it down and it fit perfectly! Which made me so happy because I am seriously in love with that chair.

Then we needed a new rug because our existing cream rug, wasn't cream anymore. It was a dirty shade of dirt ;). When we moved the sofa off the rug, the part of the rug that was under the sofa was BRIGHT cream, and the rest of the rug was . . . it was gross, just plain gross.
We were gifted our new rug from friends who had bought it but it didn't fit their room . . . it's the EGEBY rug from Ikea. It's a beautiful sisal rug for an amazing price (at $169). It was a bit rough so we layered our cow hide on top and I am in LOVE with the look.

(please ignore the fluffy tree stump dog toy under the coffee table . . . Max loves that toy and it almost never gets put away . . . I didn't even notice it until I was writing this post)

I should explain why I ran the rug length wise instead of horizontal in the room. It just came down to we really liked walking on the wood floor in to the living room. It made the "traffic flow" more natural.

What's left to do: 
-Some throw pillows for the sofa.
-Find/ buy/ make a sofa table. 
-Depending on how high the sofa table is . . . maybe find a new lamp.
-Maybe find another matching rocking chair??? maybe. Lee's saying no as he's reading this over my shoulder. Okay he's gone now . . . -find a matching rocking chair!

I read a quote by Suzanne Kasler:

"A room should feel Collected not Decorated" 

I know the room seems less decorated now . . . and maybe not as 'put together' as it did before and it's really hard to describe it . . . but it just feels so much better now. Not that there's was anything outwardly wrong with our living room before . . . now it just feels more collected! Less put together and more natural. Sorry that's the best way I can think to describe it.  We are really happy with the switcheroo. I am hoping to decide on a sofa table this week, so maybe later this week I'll have an update! I really think that a sofa table is going to make this room!

Still more changes to come this week . . . we'll have some of our first shots of the basement "media" room and the office has two desks in it for the first time!!! :) So exciting/stressful/ amazing/ crazy/ fun!