The Front Room

Honestly, I can never remember which is the family room and which is the living room so I just call the upstairs the front room...makes sense to me! The front room finally got a makeover! Here is the before...

Holy white and beige! Add a beige sofa (from our apartment) and that is how the room looked for a good 8 months. It was pretty overwhelming to think about decorating it. I knew I didn't want to paint, afterall the walls are pretty much 1,000 feet high and the thought of having to figure out how to paint that high was exhausting so I needed to figure out how to embrace the beige and white. 

The first addition was a rug. I looked and looked for a fun floral or geometric pattern that would liven up the room and this is what I ended up with...

Yep, that is right, an all white rug! Oops. The rug is faux sheepskin and I really loved the texture so I changed plans, go for a nautral rug and add pops of color elsewhere. 

The next additions were a coffee table and a side table from the Good Ju Ju. I LOVE the Good Ju Ju!! If you have not been, you must (http://www.goodjujukc.com/). The coffee table was $40 and the side table was $30...score! Then I added a leather chair from TJ Max...

My grandma and I made the pillows and the cushion on the coffee table (so I guess it is more of an ottoman) together as well as the curtain after a trip to the Sh** shack in Springfield. I have no idea what the fabric  store is called really but there is fabric stuffed in every nook and cranny of the place. It takes hours and lots of digging but we always leave with the perfect fabric for next to nothing. It is awesome!

Next came the buffet. I found it on Craigslist for $100 and made my precious little sister come along with me to pick it up. I am not the biggest fan of Craigslist simple because you have to go to a strangers house but when you score a great buffet for cheap, gotta do whatcha gotta do! I forgot to take a before pic but it looked something like this one that I saw at an estate sale...

I took the hardware off and sanded, primed, and painted the whole thing and now it looks like this...

At last, some color in the room! All the knobs came from World Market and for all 12, it was less than $20!

Now to address the massive white wall...I knew I wanted it to house our wedding picture so I began looking for the perfect shelves. Really I wanted the shelves to be 6 feet long to really cover the wall and I kept coming up empty handed. Thus, I begged asked my sweet older brother to build some for me. I had this vision of what I wanted and when I can't find it, I can usually convince him to make it.  I won't tell you how long it took him to finally get around to making them but none the less he came through and they are awesome! They are huge and I just can't tell you how much I love them...

Aren't they awesome! 

Last, I had to do something with the wall space above the buffet. I really wanted a big round mirror but mirrors are so expensive so maybe someday. For now, I found a $45 mirror at the RiverMarket antique store and painted it to match the knobs on the buffet. It works for now and it is a fun splash of color.

Here is how the room looks now...