Housewife for a Day

Happy Hump Day, ya’ll. Day two of being back at this blog thing and I am going strong.

Onto my next post - highlighting some home updates. I recently had nine WHOLE days off from work, for the week of July 4th. It was just lovely, as my body, mind and spirit needed it, but moreover, it also showed me what a truly great housewife I could be if I had every day to frolic around and do home projects. I relish days at which I can pretend I am housewife, because they are few and far between.

One project in particular that I was finally able to get done was the design of our living room. This room has been keeping me up at night since the day we moved in. It is one of those rooms that is oddly shaped and we are never really sure whether it should have a couch and TV or some type of eating area. Our kitchen actually opens up into this room, so it is kind of a focal point when you enter our kitchen area.

I’ve been hoping people’s eyes could ignore this ‘focal’ point for about 8 months now, as saying the room needed some work was an understatement.

Real-talk: we had couches from my college apartment in this room. Okay I said it out loud! Phew. Yes, one of my roommates from college was given pretty nice couches from her parents for our apartment. After a year of living in the apartment, they were a little less than nice, but not horrible. So somehow or another, they’ve traveled with me for about five years now. To make matters worse, when little Jasmine (our dog) was a puppy, she decided the couch was a great substitute for a chew toy. Enough said?

Here are some before pictures:

So obviously it was time for a makeover. We very abruptly (and by we, I mean me) woke up one morning over my vacation very anxious to fix the room up immediately. I did absolutely no research, other than to call Macy’s and say, and I quote, “Do you have a couch that I can take home today?” to which the woman on the phone said “yes, and it is on sale.” That was all I needed to know. Before I knew it, I had my father, brother-in-law, Jay, and hubbster lugging out the old college sofa and bringing in the new girl. (Note: It is okay to personify furniture when you are really excited about it. Men get to do it to their cars, right?)

 The couch at Macy's - Gotta love a red tag.

 After setting it up..

New couch: check! Next up, making the rest of the room work with the couch. The room had an entirely different arrangement beforehand, so I had to kind of start over with the overall design. To me, I could hear the huge, empty wall above the couch screaming to be made into a gallery wall. And I was happy to oblige. My Dad spent a couple mornings in a row working with me to patch up some holes and then slowly building the gallery wall. I didn’t follow the (very smart) advice of others to plan the wall out on the ground first. I just hung the photos up one by one, and somehow it all magically came together.

My Dad and Jasmine patching up wholes

Some of my favorite pieces from the picture wall:

• The big kiss on our wedding day
• An original Beatles record given to me by my Mom
• Billy oystering
• Our marriage license
• A framed quote from Whoopi Goldberg : "Normal is in the eye of the beholder"
• And maybe my favorite, a framed postcard from my sister's Morroco visit

From there, I tried to stick with my original goal to make the room feel light and beach house-ish by adding lots of blues, whites and silvers. And viola, here is how it all came out.

Bill, Jasmine and I have been spending lots of time in the room now and I am just loving it. I also feel really good that I waited 8 months to figure out what to do with room, as some times you need to live in a room for a while before deciding how to spruce it up.

I've been saying to Billy that I feel like a huge weight has been lifted, having this room done. Like I said, I'd be an amazing housewife if I could do this all day, everyday. 

Happy Wednesday!