New House Project: Living Room

And, more ... can you stand it? 

The living room was a big project for me. This was the biggest change from our old house - a whole extra room, that was initially a furniture graveyard.  When we first toured the house, I didn't really even know what lay beyond this tiny entry door.

 

 Here it is empty after we took possession.

 And we immediately had our handy man open up this wall. I knew this room wouldn't get tons of traffic, but we would really never use it if you couldn't see it. (By the by, our home inspector told us it should be "no problem" to open up this wall. Fast forward to moving the sewer line to the master bathroom and ductwork, and this is what you get). Also, we knew all the floors would need to be refinished (we were lucky and had hardwoods almost everywhere, but 3-4 different colors throughout), so this was the optimal time to patch the floor to match.

Here you can see some of the furniture graveyard. My super-duper aunt brought us these chairs to use, as well as the console table and some other treasures. Free furniture AND delivery? It's like we won the lottery! We moved the furniture around every which way and finally ended up with this arrangement. 

This was our old kitchen table and two of the dining room chairs (which I previously recovered here). We don't need the seating all the time, but do need it for holidays and if we have friends for dinner and can't eat outside. Plus, I can't get the table to the basement, so here it stayed! I found the painting at the Mission Road Antique Mall and it was a good price for the large size - lots of wall space to fill in here.

I found this asian screen at Nick Carter, an antique store in midtown. Same story, second verse - good price, size and colors. He has lots of interesting things in his shop, especially all kinds of art. I found the blue ginger jar lamp at Habitat ReStore and bought the drum shade on sale at Pottery Barn. You can see the console table here and an old bench that I recovered last year.

This screen is very lightweight, yet didn't have any hanging mechanism on the back. I couldn't really figure out how to hang it, so spent quite a bit of time researching. I came across this picture of a hanging screen on Bryn Alexandra's blog (another favorite) and knew that I wanted to try to mimic it - hang it with a little "movement" or dimension instead of just flat. This idea came to me in the middle of the night (seriously, it's a sickness). I epoxied four D-ring hangers on the back - two at each outer hinge. We let them dry, then I slid a thin metal rod through the D-rings.

 I got all the supplies at the local hardware store. I asked about some kind of "hook" hanger - something to rest the bar on, but that wouldn't show above the screen. The guy recommended Monkey Hooks and they are seriously awesome. You just poke it into the wall - no drilling or big holes - and it holds plenty of weight and is almost invisible. We put one hook in the middle of each set of D-rings and it worked perfectly.

 The console table needed a little attention. I sanded it with my new Ryobi orbital sander (aah, the things that make me happy) and primed it with Zinsser oil-based spray primer. This stuff is awesome and works great. I needed almost two cans for this table and all the nooks and crannies. I then proceeded to paint the table with Clark + Kensington's semi-gloss paint in 'Fairfield Manor' color. The color was just what I wanted - a good teal/blue/green (I have about a trillion paint color strips in my paint pile), but if you do this I suggest you find a spray paint color you like. The spraying was SO much easier than the painting. It was tedious and required lots of light coats with a foam brush, maybe 5-7 coats. Ugh. I didn't sand between, but generally follow the furniture painting tutorials from Centsational Girl.

 Here is the (for now) finished project!

The chairs were slipcovered by my great slipcover lady who previously did our sofa and chairs. I was originally going to order gray linen from Gray Line Linen in New York, but she suggested I go with some color. It was about 4 yards per chair - we added the skirts to make them less contemporary - and I didn't want to spend a fortune on fabric. I stopped by HomeFabrics and Rugs and found a bolt of this great coral linen for a great price. It was perfect! It matched the colors in the french painting, and then I found the asian screen after and it has little cherry blossoms in the same color. Good decorating karma. I wanted some pillows for the chairs and bought the feather pillows at HomeGoods on super clearance. You can imagine my mother and sister's horror at the discussion of more pillow fabric, so I went with white linen pillow covers on sale at The Company Store. They are nice and simple and flexible.

My mom had these lamps made for me at Dave Smith the Lampmaker for my last birthday.  I had previously bought the pair of elephants at Good JuJu and they make the perfect lamps! I really needed lighting in here - no ceiling fixture in this room.

And I recovered these chairs (again). The rosy red color wasn't working for me. I again went with a vinyl emu in a cream color, super easy to do. 

 And here you can see the painted console table, hanging screen and recovered bench. Same vinyl, much easier than the first time because I saved all the nailhead trim and re-used it and already had a perfect template for the fabric. I bought glass panels for the table from Westport Glass and Mirror and they were so easy to work with. I just called with the measurements, paid over the phone and they called me when they were ready!

And here is the antique daybed that I inherited from my parents. I used to be on our porch at the old house, but we don't really have an outside spot for it at this house. It probably needs to be sandblasted and re-painted, and I dream of having a custom tufted mattress made for it, but for now this is the solution: an outdoor cushion that just happens to be the perfect (wonky) size, covered in a twin quilt that I bought at HomeGoods. I found the bolsters on sale at World Market that just happened to be the same perfect (wonky) size and the exact coral color of the chairs. Again, karma!

The final project, completed just this month, was painting the fireplace. It had already been painted at some point, and I knew I would re-paint it, but just couldn't settle on a color. I finally just decided to paint it the wall color and call it good (for now). Mom mom helped me and it went pretty quickly - the taping off of the floors, mantle and hearth took almost as long as the painting. I didn't prime it because it had already been painted. Just vacummed off the dust, used a stiff brush to paint the mortar lines and a thick roller to cover the brick faces. It isn't perfectly covered, but a little dimension to the paint looks nice (says the lazy painter).Oh, and I removed the brass and wire mesh fireplace screen - it just unscrewed from inside the fireplace.

And then I hung these angels over the mantle. They were in the dining room at our old house, another borrowed item from my super-duper aunt! I have a lot of trouble committing to art above a mantle (I feel like it needs to be something decent and worth looking at) and a mirror would just reflect the ceiling (ugly). I love these and they were the right size - ta da! I did have to drill into the mortar, which sounds scary, but was super easy. I got a special mortar drill bit and brick anchors and long screws the right size for the anchors. The screws stick out a bit beyond the brick, which is perfect for catching the wire hook on the back of the angels.

And, finally you can see here how the dining room and living room connect with the bigger doorway. This is our old dining room table with new/old chairs (the chairs from my childhood kitchen table!) that I recovered. The white arm chairs are here because they don't have another home, but are a good reading spot. (Or time-out spot, who am I kidding?!?)

 Now ... will you come over for dinner so we can actually use the spaces in our house beyond the kitchen and family room (aka our studio apartment) ???