Living Room Refresher

While Craig and dad are busy finishing my our laundry room, I've been looking for projects I can tackle around the house.  Don't get me wrong, I'm welcome to help them out in my soon-to-be sanctuary, but I've learned that sometimes it's better for everyone if I'm around only when they need me :)

One of the things that's been on my to-do list is the living room.  It's still a work in progress, but we've come a long way since we first moved in:

So far, we've replaced the granny sheers with roman shades from Rona and cheap curtain panels from Walmart, and painted the formerly rose-coloured walls a sunny yellow.  And with the basement being livable, we were able to move some pieces downstairs and bring some new pieces in.  Here's what we were working with as of last weekend:

{ Just ignore the loveseat.  We're looking into getting a couch when our little piggy bank is full again. }

I could finally see we were getting somewhere.  But it was missing something.  Do you see where?  I'll give you a little hint.  It's over here:

I figured we could find a console table that could help fill up the space and corral all of the mail/paper/flyers that make their way into the house with us and end up on the dining table.  We decided that an Ikea Malm dressing table would fit the bill perfectly.  Not only were we able to score this table in white (which still doesn't show on the website for some reason), it was also $20 cheaper than the others!  (I told Craig to open the box carefully in case it was a mistake and we had to return the thing because it was just too good to be true.)  We also picked up an extra storage ottoman from the greatest place on earth (aka Superstore) to match the one we already had: 

{ Best buddies. }

Not a perfect match, but I actually like the fact that they don't look exactly the same.  So after some  assembly, here is the space all put together:

Since mom told me that our place was "devoid of any personality" (okay, maybe not in such harsh words), we thought this would be the perfect spot to make the space a little less impersonal.  On that same trip to Ikea, we picked up a few more frames to add to those collecting dust in our junk room.  After that, we just had to do the following:

a) figure out a layout;

b) cut out templates and tape them up to the wall;

c) whip out our handy Hang-and-Level (seriously, this is the best thing ever for picture-hanging-challenged people like us);

d) and stand back and admire our hard work!

Easy peasy, right?  I wish!  I think it took us a day to do this whole project, including buying and assembling the furniture, and enlarging the photos.  But we think it was worth it.  We love that it includes pics of our family and artwork that we love.  Now on to find other places around the house to put up another gallery wall!

PS: I know the pictures are slightly crooked and I will straighten them later.