Two Years and Two Months In

Well, I took a very long hiatus from this blog. An almost two years hiatus (sorry blog). Since 2011, I have graduated college and have a full time job! Yep, I'm officially an adult now. 

Anyway, I'm BACK! I have randomly decided to start blogging again. And I'm going to try to keep up this time, buuuut...I have a lot of catching up to do. It has been about 2 years and 2 months since we have been living in this house now. And even longer that we have been renovating. It's extremely hard to stay motivated all the time to work on the house. We think about it A LOT. I mean, we are living in it. But to actually get the motivation and the time to work on everything that needs to get done is a challenge. Nonetheless, we have made lots of progress, so the next few (or several) posts are probably going to be filling you in on all of the big projects we've tackled.

First up, The Living Room. This was our first big project and the first room that we tackled, before I even moved in, back in 2010. If you go back to my first Living Room Post, you will see that we completely gutted the room. It looked like this about mid-way through:

The living room back in September of 2010.
We added insulation, which it had never had before!

Then we added a little drywall into the mix, and it looked like this:

October 2010 - Drywall and even some mud!

And we painted the walls (in Water Chestnut by Glidden):

October 2010 - Paint on the walls

Once the paint was complete, we refinished the floor and added window trim. Again, you can go back Here to see pictures of the finished floor. Meanwhile, here's Trent in action with the window trim (Sorry for the bad pic):

November 2010 - Installing window trim!

With the addition of some new furniture and accessories (the fun stuff), by Spring of 2011, our living room looked like this (Don't mind the door against the wall - we were saving that for another project):

Living Room in April 2011

Here's a (rather long) source list, too - scroll further down to see some of the items: 

Wall paint: Glidden in "Water Chesnut" from Home Depot, Curtains: IKEA, Curtain rods: Target, Couch: Sofa Mart, Couch pillows: Dwell from Target, Throw: Target, Side chairs: Target.com, Pillows on chairs: Kohl's, Lamps and lamp shades: Target, Coffee table: Already owned (But we think it was from Target), End tables: Target, Sea fan picture on wall: TJ Maxx, Decorative Iron wall hanging: Hobby Lobby, Pink Faux flowers and vase: Wal-Mart, Mirror (See below): Hobby Lobby, Brown storage ottoman (See below): Target, Chevron pillow (See below): Kohl's, Wall clock (See below): Kohl's, White picture frames (See below): IKEA, TV (See below): Samsung from Best Buy, TV Stand (See below): Target, Wall shelf (See below): Menards, Pillar Candles (See below): Kohl's, Candle Holders (See below): IKEA.

It's a big improvement, to us anyway, especially looking at the before and after pics:

That top picture may have been an in-progress shot, but still..you get the picture. Much better right?

I don't think I have taken an updated photo of the whole living room since then, but here are some pictures I have of various areas of the room:

The above photos are back from April of 2011 as well. It has changed a little since then - not drastically, but furniture has been switched around, and the brown ottoman you see in the above picture is currently living in the bedroom. We moved it out when we brought in the Christmas tree in December. We also have 2 end tables flanking the couch. The black chair you see in the picture on the right was Trent's and has moved back upstairs. It was a temporary fix for some additional seating, but it was looking kind of old and tired!

As you can probably tell, it is a fairly small room directly to the left when you walk in the house from the front door. The two pictures below show the little frame arrangement I added in the corner. The photos inside the frames have changed since then, so I will have to post an updated picture of those! We're sticking to mostly black and white photos on the walls...just what we prefer I guess.

My favorite addition to the living room so far is this:

It is the hutch that I inherited from my grandma in the Spring of last year. My grandma actually passed away in September, so I guess that kinda makes it extra special. I just love it in here...It makes it feel so much more like home. Most of the dishes inside were hers as well, including that green and white plate with the pink flowers that I have admired in her house for years. It is my favorite plate that I own! I actually have a collection of antique plates that I've gotten at antique stores and yard sales over the past couple of years. I have some of them in this cabinet, and some hanging in the kitchen. It's always fun looking for the perfect plate to add to my collection!

But anyway, there you have an update of our living room progress, which I hope to take more recent pictures for soon. In the end, I am really glad at the way it's turned out so far. It is definitely our favorite room in the house, and the room we spend the most time in everyday, so it's been fun watching it change and become more "home-y" along the way.

Stay tuned for some more updates tomorrow!