(I actually wrote this back in the spring but then put it off to the side because it wasn’t like we were doing any work in the living room. We still haven’t done anything but since apparently August is move-into-a-new-house month, I’ve been seeing SO MANY posts of people talking about their homes and what they’re working on. We really haven’t written much about the house so here’s something about the house!)
As we were about to move into our house, people kept asking what furniture we needed. We were actually pretty lucky – I furnished my own apartment when I lived in Pennsylvania and I had some items from my grandmother’s apartment in storage (aka my parents’ basement) after she passed away. The one thing I didn’t have was a couch – I left that in a dumpster in Pennsylvania when I moved. Luckily, Matt’s family said that they would give us the couch and chair from their basement for the living room. Matt gave us a fair warning that the couch was very old and had some stains but a free couch is a free couch so we had no complaints.
Well. One complaint. It didn’t fit into the house. James took a day off work, took the doors off, rearranged the dining room, and it still took him three hours to stuff the couch into the living room. That night, I asked if once we got our permanent couch if we could move Matt’s couch to the basement. He said the only way that the couch was leaving the living room was via chainsaw. Remember this statement for later.
Fast forward two months, a family friend gives us their old couch. It’s basically brand new but they ordered a different living room set and needed to get rid of their old couch. This one was an L-shaped sectional which is EXACTLY what I wanted. We stored it in the garage until we could find time to move our old couch out and the new one in.
One random night, the plans that James and I had fell through. James mentioned that he was thinking about moving the couch but it was raining outside so I didn’t think he was doing much more than thinking about it. I went to take a shower and the next thing I know, I hear all sorts of noise from the living room. Matt and James were hacking the old couch to PIECES and THROWING THEM OUT THE LIVING ROOM WINDOW. Can’t say I’m surprised. By the end of the night, the new couch was in place and I took up my assigned seat in the corner. I also took up our old rug and put another hand-me-down that matched with the couch better. And didn’t have white as a base color.
There still is a lot of work to do in the living room. Because it’s off to the side, it winds up being where we shove a lot of junk when company is coming over. We also tend to fold our laundry in there while watching TV and then forget about it for several days. Oh, and we have frequent overnight guests so at any given moment there’s a pile of blankets and pillows stuffed in a corner.
On our project list:
- Paint!
- A previous tenant painted the walls a pale yellow with GLITTER in it. It’s super small glitter specks and I didn’t notice for like a week. Some of us that live in the house absolutely LOVE the glitter and some of us don’t…won’t name names. But whoever painted also did a crappy job and painted AROUND fixtures (curtain rods, photo hooks) instead of removing them while painting so now there’s all these random bare patches. We’ll probably wind up painting the room white and add color in with artwork and plants.
- New curtains!
- We are using multiple sets of mismatched curtains right now. The living room window is HUGE so we didn’t have one set that matched everything and didn’t want to buy anything until we finalized the furniture a bit more. The curtain rods we have for the windows are also mismatched. Ideally we’ll go with white sheers and navy light-blocking curtains (it’s really hard to watch TV at certain times of day).
- Console table behind the couch!
- A big problem we had with the old couch was it would eventually creep it’s way back until it was against the wall. We have the same problem with the new couch except it’s a sectional so each piece creeps at a different rate. Also, to accommodate the L shape, the couch is closer to the back wall than the old one. I saw some great table ideas that I think my dad and James could build. I want to make sure there’s an outlet in the top (the couch blocks an outlet right now) and some storage (for all those blankets!). The table would be a great home for plants and lamps and be a functional way to stop the couch from sliding backwards.
- Coffee table or ottoman!
- For the longest time we were using a random plastic bin for putting our feet up and our drinks on. It was tiny, it was not the right height, it needed to find a new home. Our neighbors wound up giving us their old coffee table and the plastic bin went to live under the desk (see below). Originally I wanted one of those storage ottomans that has a reversible lid but the coffee table actually takes up a lot of space and since the one we have now has empty space below it, it’s easy to drag around the room. Maybe we’ll keep the one we have now and just refinish it?
- Organize the desk nook!
- My old desk is shoved in the corner. Both the space on top of it and underneath it have become major crap collectors. I would like to get it organized so all of us can actually use it as a desk when needed. I’d move my VIPKID classroom to this corner but I’m worried about waking everybody up/catching too much background noise if I’m teaching when others are already awake.
- Picture frames!
- We have tons of awesome art and family photos that we’d like to hang but we want to do so in a cohesive way. I want to try and hit some local vintage stores for old picture frames.
- A new TV stand!
- We have a cheap particle board TV stand that gets the job done but the top is starting to warp. Also, it has cabinets (yay – a place to hide junk!) but the knobs that it came with DON’T ACTUALLY FIT IN THE CABINET DOORS. The screws literally aren’t long enough to reach through the doors. There is this big piece of furniture that I’m pretty sure has been in the living room since my aunt and uncle built that section of house back in the 60s…like I seriously don’t think it can be moved out of the living room. It’s this console table that has speaker cabinets built in so I think it held some type of record player/stereo. If we could figure out a way to easily access the now-empty speaker cabinets, it would make a great TV stand (it’s super old and vintage and cool looking). Right now it’s home to some plants and picture frames but those can be moved. I was hoping my piano could go in the spot that this piece would vacate but when I told James, he just laughed. He said there’s no way to get the piano into the house…and sadly I think he’s correct. So now I think my new plan would be to move either the desk or Lilly’s cage to that corner and then put some shelves above the desk to hold some picture frames and decorations.
- A sliding barn door!
- This would be the biggest project and probably the one we’d have to talk our landlords into the most. The living room is actually right next to our bedroom so the door would definitely help block some sound if people wanted to use the living room while one of us is sleeping. This would also help with our air conditioning usage – we originally put one unit in our room and one unit in the dining room but because the living room is off to the side, the air just wouldn’t flow into it. We finally put one in the living room that is a decent size for the living room but somehow even though air wouldn’t flow it, the air now flows out. Closing the door would allow us to control the temperature throughout the house a bit more.
- More plants!
- I’m perfectly okay with my living room looking like a greenhouse. Just have to find a way to keep them alive.
Some of these things are a bit more manageable than others…maybe I’ll start playing around with some measuring tape and Pinterest once the weather cools down!
Until our next adventure!
The Harkin Chronicles 