Living Room Before and After

One of my very favorite blogs is The Polohouse.  Allison has a blog party called "Favorites on the First", and this month her theme is "my favorite room".  I'm offering a post I did last fall, as you can see from the pumpkins in the room.  Thank you, Allison, your blog is always such an inspiration to me!

Well, my friends, it's taken me over a year of blogging to do a post on my living room.  Thank you all for your interest.  I don't know why I've been so reluctant, but here it is! 

This room literally and figuratively is the heart of our home and in the scope of our entire remodeling project, this certainly took the most time, money, research, skill and love.  We use it often.  It is not just a "look-at" room by any means.  It is warm and cozy in the fall and winter, and gives us easy access to the outside in the nice weather. 

Tour with me!

As you come in the front door, past the dining room and down the entry hall, this is what you'll see.  I did a post on our entry hall a few weeks ago.  You can see it here.

This is the view if you enter the room from the kitchen and keeping room side.

And this is the bird's eye view from the second story hallway.  Shouldn't that lampshade be straighter?

Here's the way it looked with the previous owners' things in it.  The paint was a shiny, dark cranberry and even the ceiling was painted that color.  This photo is very dark, but note the unassuming colonial fireplace with a brick hearth.  The French doors had dark awnings hanging over them.  Between the paint color and the awnings, this was a very dark and oppressive room.  But, I KNEW it had great promise.

This was the greatest improvement in the whole house.  I'm so crazy about this limestone mantle that it is going to have it's own post soon. 

Here's a close-up detail of the carving.

These pearl handled tools were a house warming gift many houses ago from some very special friends.  Since these are gas logs, these are the only tools we need.

Next, we removed this Juliette balcony which you can see the bottom of here, and this railing on the second floor.  We dry walled both of these openings.  They seemed so contrived to me.  The red paint HAD to go and we repainted with Benjamin Moore's White Dove, my go-to white paint.  Flat on the walls and ceiling here and semi-gloss on the woodwork.

Here's the same area.  I'll talk about that antique French gate we inserted into the wall in another post.  Do you see another major improvement?

Yep!  We felt that this room was screaming for these beautiful beams.  I had to work the layout around the chandelier, as I didn't want to move it, so that determined how many we put in.  I think they turned out exactly right.

This beautiful zinc-finished chandelier was already there and I didn't even have to think about whether or not to keep it.  I absolutely love it......until I need to change bulbs, that is!  There are two more that are very similar in other rooms of the house. 

Then the floors in the whole house were refinished and stained much darker.  I have done several floors with this workman and he keeps the formula for my stain in his notes.  It is a mix of a mahogany and a Jacobean walnut.  This is not where you rush the job.  A good re finisher will sand the floor several places and put several stains on it until you find your combination.  Do not settle for a standard color if it is not what you want!  This is also a good look at our area rug.  It is a flat weave "oriental" which is called a Soumak.  It is also characterized by being able to use in on the reverse side, depending on your preference.  We retired most of our traditional red/blue oriental rugs  and bought several Soumaks for this house.  I love the pattern they add without being overpowering in color or design.

Here you're looking back toward the entryway at the sofa.  I did a "Customer's Own Material", or "COM" order on a fairly standard frame. 

It's a green chenille tweed and I've trimmed it out with a studded flat braid. 

I used very little silk in this house, but here, I thought I just had to use this striped silk on these pillows.  I trimmed out the flange with this balled braid.

Since I wasn't using end tables with this sofa, I chose to use a pair of barley twist floor lamps and I put square linen shades on them.

OK!  Here's where Mr. Pressed Pants got a huge "atta-boy"!  The previous owners

had this beautiful antique armoire in the perfect place in this room.  As we viewed this house, I said to him that if we bought this house, we would HAVE to also put an armoire there.  Without my knowledge, he arranged to buy this one from them and it was my Christmas present.  Isn't he the best?

But doesn't it look soooo much better with the white walls? 

Take a peek at the details of the construction and the hardware.  Perfection!

On each side, we hung two of these antique driving prints.  I gave them to Mr. Pressed Pants several years ago for Valentine's Day.  To my great surprise, he gave me antique artwork that year, too.

This leather chair and ottoman actually came from a consignment store.  I wasn't even shopping for furniture for this room yet, but when I saw them, they were in my SUV in a heartbeat.

On this little French end table, I have a simple vignette of antique books, old porcelain inkwell, and a faux bois planter.  This changes often, depending on the season, the amount of light coming in the door, and how fast I've killed the plants.

On the other side of the room, I have hung this pastel by Georgia Dearborn.  It is of the marshes of Cape Cod and is a wonderful souvenir of our many years of Cape Cod vacations. 

Here's a charming detail of Canadian geese in the reeds.

There are a pair of these new French chairs covered in coral linen and accented by pillows in "Indienne Linen" by Travers and trimmed with an elegant silk fringe trim.  This trim is probably the fanciest thing in this house.  I made a definite decision to keep this a simple country house with more of a lodge look than anything. 

Between these chairs, I put the other small French end table with some very simple items.

On this wall, behind these chairs, these doors lead to the breakfast room and the keeping area, and then to the pool.

I've closed the doors in this photo.  It's very hard to get a good image of these etched glass panels. 

Here's what this wall looked like before we removed the balcony.  By doing so, we created an uninterrupted wall in the upstairs office.  Removing some of these features, we simplified things and that allowed the fireplace to be the star of the room.

These doors are usually left open.  The etching supports the subtle French design influences in this room which I wanted to accent a bit more. So they stayed!

One more attempt to capture the design for you!

In the corner is a cherry block front chest that we have had a long time.  Early in our marriage, Mr. PP won a sales contest and this is what we got with the spoils.  I've topped it with a gilt mirror which was supposed to be temporary, but I've changed my mind and it is staying.  At least until the next antique show I go to!

I do NOT subscribe to the philosophy that the public rooms of a home are no place for family photos.  Baloney!  It's my home and I can't find enough places for these sweet faces.  They fill me with joy and I want to see them everywhere.

I've moved a few things so you can see the old French ironwork that the coffee table is made from.  I needed something large, square and not too heavy looking.  This was fabricated at The Stalls in Atlanta.

This stag inkwell came from Martine's Fine Antiques in Chagrin Falls, Ohio.  She specializes in silver and fine linens.  A very fun place to shop.

These came from Scott's Antique Show.

These silvered antlers from Z Gallerie sit on top of an art book from France by an artist we loved.  We bought a couple of her pastels and they hang in our keeping room.

He's been in quite a few of my posts.  I found him at Boxwoods a few years ago.

This faux bois planter holds mums and ferns right now.  It would be nice if the mums lived until it's time for poinsettias.

So that's the coffee table line up.

I wish you could all join me here for a glass of wine.  It's a place that wraps its arms around me and I hope it says "Come in" to you.  This was a very long post with a lot of photos, but hey, we made a lot of changes.

I'm linking here:

Feathered Nest Friday

http://frenchcountrycottage.blogspot.com/

Wow Us Wednesday

http://savvysouthernstyle.blogspot.com/

Open House Thursday

http://nominimilisthere.blogspot.com/

French Inspiration Thursday

http://frenchcupboard.blogspot.com/

Transformation Thursday

http://www.theshabbychiccottage.com/

Home Sweet Home

http://thecharmofhome.blogspot.com/

Show and Tell Friday

http://myromantichome.blogspot.com/

Inspiration Friday

http://www.atthepicketfence.com/

Fridays Unfold

http://www.stuff-and-nonsense.net/