In order to full appreciate how far our living room has come in the past few months you must first see what it looked like only a few days after we moved in. There was stuff everywhere, wedding stuff needing to be put away, laundry waiting to be folded. I never planned to blog this photo or I might've tried to make it look better...regardless, here is what our living room looked like when we moved into our apartment:
A lot has changed since those early days. We've added furniture, I changed out the curtains, put more photos up in my little collection, and rearranged...This isn't something that happened over night though, and finding everything wasn't exactly an easy process. So now that you've seen our living room BEFORE here is the AFTER:
A huge difference as you can see! Side tables, a full couch, a coffee table, a bookcase, a recliner/rocking chair, the shelf is hung...so many things going on here! I'm about to show you more detailed photos so keep reading!
The Side Table. This table (which you can better see in the bottom left corner of the second photo of this post) was picked up at a yard sale...for a surprising ONE DOLLAR! I would eventually like to do something to it since it's in a well used state right now. I haven't decided if I want to paint it or if I want to give it a good work-over with some polish and a rag...either way I love and and was thrilled to find it! The *pink* lamp was thrifted for $3 at the local thrift store, the lampshade was given to me by a friend. Kleenex is everywhere in my house because of allergies. The coaster is supposed to help Autry (and myself) to not put cold drinks on the table. Those were thrifted as well but I'm not sure if they were yard sale or thrift store. You can see a bit of the lace curtain in the background. Those were bought at a thrift store as well.
Red Couch. This couch was purchased at an antique store in a near-by town. It's probably the most expensive thing I bought in a long time since it cost a little over $200. We used wedding money though and I think it was a good purchase. I do love this couch and it matches the other couch which we already had. The pillows came from our first couch and match perfectly.
Coffee Table. The amazing thing about this coffee table is I wasn't even looking for one when I found it! I was driving around in a near-by neighborhood looking for furniture that people were looking to get rid of (our town had one of those weekends where you put your things on the side of the curb to have it hauled to the dump). I was just driving past this lady's house when I realized she was putting a gorgeous coffee table on the corner. I stopped and asked if she was selling it and she said, "no, I just have to get rid of it. It's in really good shape. Very sturdy. I've had kids climbing on it for years we just got a new one." It was free so I took the legs off and worked it into the back of my little Dodge Neon. And let me tell you that was no easy task! I love it and it IS very sturdy!
Long before I had the coffee table these decorations were created. The first mason jar is holding white rocks which I hand picked from Black River on one of mine & Autry's trips down there. He things the rocks are silly, but I like them. The second jar is wrapped in ...... and the third jar is mostly filled with paper heart punch-outs from the book Pride & Prejudice. They were left over from another project, but were too pretty to throw out. The yellow crochet doily was given to me by a very nice man who runs one of my favorite antique stores downtown.
This old checkerboard is one of my favorite things in our living room. I found it at a local thrift store for $2. Its really a beautiful antique piece and I'm not sure I could've gotten that kind of deal anywhere else! The candle and photo (which says: This candle is here today in honor of the ones we love who are too far away to join us in the celebration of our wedding) were on a table at our wedding reception. And of course two more of those glass coasters as seen on the side table just above.
White End Table/Bookcase. On the opposite end of our red couch we have quite a few things, but sometimes in small places things can look a little crowded. Anyway, the white table was wedding gift. I found the heart lace doily at a thrift store, and the white lamp in the process of being put back together was thrifted as well. The bookcase was a gift from family to Autry just a few days ago for his birthday. He's thrilled to be able to put all his books on it since before they were in boxes. The baskets hold a LOT of blankets that I use to keep warm since Autry likes to keep the house cold. All of the blankets were thrifted, the white basket was thrifted. The other basket was bought at a local antique store for about $10 (the other's were $20 or more!).
The Dresser. Now the dresser & tv are two things we had when we moved in. The TV is probably 300 pounds and was a pain to move and I'm not sure I want to take it with us when we move again... The dresser was given to me by my older brother. I LOVE it! I'm thinking it will eventually be used as the baby dresser since it matches both the baby bed and diaper changing table I have. I haven't come up with anything terribly creative to put on the right side of the dresser so there's just the one lone candle we like to light up on occasion.
The Long Shelf. You can see the shelf in the second photo of this post. I couldn't really get a good close-up of it so I just broke it into three photos to show the things on it. Even though the shelf isn't technically ours, since one day I'm sure I'll have to give it back to my mom, I'm still thrilled to be able to use it right now! It was made by my Grandpa. I've got a variety of odds and ends on the shelf. It took me a super long time to decide what I wanted on it, but I finally, slowly, figured it out.
I picked up the pine cone in LaDonna's yard in Oklahoma. She used to be like a mom to me in my college years. I miss her a lot. I don't remember how I ended up with the old ink box. Next are three different dictionaries & old books which I picked up at the local library in the Free Books section. The brass bell was purchased at my favorite downtown antique store for $2. Next are my old Bibles. One of them belonged to Autry's uncle who has passed away. The 'Live Simply' sign was also purchased at the downtown antique store.
I have several Willow Tree figurines. Three of them were given to me by my mom and one I found at a thrift store for .75 cents! I was thrilled. The one on the left is called "Mi Casa", this was given to me by my mom. In between the figurines is a copy of The Declaration of Independence on a wood plaq. I got this at a local antique store for $2. On the right of that are three angels. "The Angel of Healing" (given to me by mom), "Remembrance" (I got at the thrift store), and "Good Health" (also given to me by my mom). I love them! The little sign hanging on one of the many hooks on the shelf reads: Home Is the Starting Place for Love & Dreams. It was given to us by Autry's aunt.
Finally we have a few more old dictionaries, also from the library's Free Books section, a wood sign which I picked up on clearance at Barns & Noble which says: All You Need Is Love, and an old basket made out of wood with a little heart on the front and filled with clearance fake flowers.
The Yarn Corner. As you may already know, I really like to crochet. Now I'm pretty lazy when it comes to finishing up projects so that's why I don't most too much about it, but I DO love to crochet and I've always got a few projects running at the same time. The old white apple basket was a wedding gift and holds the almost finished Camo blanket which I started for Autry back in May of 2012. The other basket holds several partially finished scarves. The white dog statue was given to me a really long time ago by my little sister when I had to put down my Black Lab mix, Jackie.
The Gold Floral Couch. This couch was given to me by my mom when I moved out. I LOVE it! The green pillows came with the couch as did the two floral pillows which I have on my red couch.
The Brown Crochet Rug. Remember when I made this rug? Maybe not, it was back in November of 2012 when I shared it on the blog. I had this made long before I knew when we would be moving into a house/apartment. This rug is beautiful, but between hubby & the cat it never looks smooth like it does here in the photo. They both have a knack for messing it up and leaving it that way...
Photo Collection. Sometimes you don't realize something is quite expensive until you go to do a big project...like filling a wall with photos! I was able to get the 8x10's on sale with a promo code, and I bought all the little ones when they were like 40% or 50% off. It took me a few months to get it all put together, but I love it now. I'm sure I'll have more photos to add to the collection eventually, but this is it for now. (The angle is weird because I had to keep from getting a window glare on the photos.) Oh yes, and the photos are located above the gold couch.
The Ledge. On the other side of the doorway to the kitchen/dining room is this lovely opening...and the awful ledge. I say awful because I feel like it's always so cluttery. Of course I cleared it off except for what's actually supposed to be up there so I could take this pic, but usually it doesn't look so fantastic. The framed lace was a DIY project which you can see here, the little oriental bowl was found at a thrift store many years ago, the Faith sign was given to me and then repainted from bright pink to the red I've used several other places in our apartment. I have three small mason jars which hold coins. One has pennies, another has nickles & dimes, and the last has quarters. Next is the Western Sentsy that my hubby gave me for Christmas in 2012. And last is a large, textured mason jar which hold the bouquet I caught at a friends wedding in 2010. I'm surprised it's lasted so long!
The Guestbook. At our wedding we used a wooden "S" as our guestbook and had everyone sign it with gold sharpies. It is on a small section of wall just after the ledge. I had to line the edge with the gold sharpie so that it would stand out more from the white apartment walls.
Grandma's Recliner. This chair sort of matches our gold couch, but obviously has a different pattern. It was given to us not long after we moved in by my grandma. It's super comfortable and is a favorite spot for both me & hubby as well as Emerald, our cat (see this post).
In Closing. I feel like our living room has pulled together rather nicely over the past 6 months. I'm quite proud of being able to find many of the things used for decoration for Free or less than $5. I'll be sad when we do move and have to start over with the rearranging process, but this time at least I will have things to give us a head start in pulling together the living room decor. Thanks for reading!
I love it when you do articles like this one. It's very interesting! And your living room looks nice and cozy. :)
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