Living Room Facelift

The living room was the first room we painted (or, rather, talked friends into painting) when we moved to Utah and eight years it was time for a facelift. Something a little brighter on the walls, new curtains, rearrange paintings, and prep for new carpet this fall.

While we were in Orlando with our fabulous Kaz crew in June we engaged the services of one of our college student friends to paint. There was an unfortunate misunderstanding where the bottom of the walls was supposed to stay rusty but instead got a shiny new coat of Mushroom Bisque as was intended for only above the chair rail. We recovered quickly(ish) from the shock of losing our beloved rust-stained walls (although it's still a little painful to talk about) and since there was no way we were going to go through the 18 step process of painting, treating, and sealing the walls again with rust treatment we chose to look at the rather boring room as a clean slate. Sigh.

Step 1: Curtains. The valance had to go, and we decided that we needed something a little bit bold. We opted for track panels from Ikea. When closed, they connect to make a macro picture of a flower. When open, they sit entirely to the sides of the windows, so they don't block any light and they make the window look huge. Success.

Step 2: Theme. In celebration of our twelfth anniversary, Steve bought this very cool painting for me. He saw it hanging up at Sundance and decided (correctly!) that it would look awesome in our living room. I decided that it was the perfect inspiration for the whole room.

Step 3: Giant copper trees. I'm sure it comes as no surprise that our decorating tastes tend towards the unique and eclectic. Oh, and time consuming, that's a prerequisite for any decorating idea I have, it must be ridiculously time consuming (see: painting millions of tiny circles on Sasha's walls and crackle painting our entire bedroom). When compared to most of our projects, hand painting 7 copper birch trees on our walls seems almost sane.

We're very happy with our brand new living room! Hmmm... what project to tackle next?

Before
And after!