With our little forray into DIY/ home improvement in the kitchen, came a few other projects around the house. One of which that has made a gigantic difference was painting our living room. It’s been the same color since we moved into our house and painted (Valspar’s Cafe AuLait Ole). I was totally over it.
Don’t be jealous of our AWESOME early 90s gold and crystal ceiling fan. I know it’s so hard, but try to hold back the envy, just for a minute.
Could it have been any more brown and blah? We used to have a red couch down here but got new furniture a couple years ago, then I switched our curtains for dropcloth panels to make it more neutral, and I think it went a little past neutral and right on into snooze-ville.
Did you spot tiny adorable one year-old Knox? Don’t you want a close-up?
OH MY GOSH. This kills me.
One more because I can’t help it. Bah!! He’s so stinking cute playing in the recycling!
Anyway, back to the matter-at-hand. We carried the same blue from the kitchen (Valspar’s Glass Tile) into the living room to make it feel like one big, cohesive space, which really opened up the downstairs and helped it to feel not so chopped up. I absolutely love it!
Oh, and we replaced the hideous ceiling fan with a new, modern one that is so much nicer!
This is where the living room and kitchen, now seamlessly, meet…
Of course, curtain-a-holic that I am, I had to change those and picked out these awesome “Farrah” panels from Target in “rust.” I special ordered the extra long ones about six months ago…. and they discontinued them. Glorious. Don’t you love when that happens? So, being that I was already obsessed with this color and pattern and could not forget about them, I ended up buying the 84″ and still have to let the hems out and re-hem them (thank goodness for a very generous seam allowance!), but just ignore the fact that they’re currently hanging two inches above the baseboard, mmkay? Thanks. 
I am mildly obsessed with the whole blue/orange color combo (hence Brody and Knox’s rooms) and figured, what the heck, my whole house might as well match, right? I think it’s so much fun to pair complementary colors that don’t exactly “match” but they “go” (in the words of Stacy and Clinton from “What Not to Wear”). The dining room will eventually get painted the same rusty color to carry the theme throughout the whole first floor.
What do y’all think? Doesn’t it make you tired just thinking about painting?? I loathe painting, but I love the results when it’s all finished! Have you done any seemingly endless home improvement projects lately?
Linking up with:
This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
I LOVE the blue! It really makes the room a lot brighter! I’m thinking about doing some painting in my tiny little cabin (owned by the camp where my husband works), but HH just told me that camp is thinking about moving us in August! No! So I think I’ll hold off on painting for a little while.
I really like the difference… I feel like beige has definitely been overdone. Bring back the blue!
Oooh, love it! You have a great eye! Come do my house!!
Love it! We’ve been painting the outside of our house this week. It sucks, but the end result is worth it (plus the husband is doing most of it).
It looks so good! Now I want to paint my whole house. I really like the color combo with the curtains and walls too. Great job. You have a magazine worthy house now.
http://www.theclarkcourierlive.blogspot.com
The blue is fun but I must admit what I’m really jealous of is your floor.
If you saw it up close you would change your mind!! It’s next in the list- the Berber started unraveling thanks to pets and the dyson sucks up any strands that stick up and eats them… It’s not good!
I LOVE it!! So much so I may have written down the paint color and where those adorable curtains are from! I have a similar two window split in my front living room and have been debating how to do curtains. I love that you just used on panel on each, don’t know why but I would have never thought of that! Looks great!
Looks good! Really like that color combo. My living room is in desperate need of a re-do, but I have a TALL vaulted ceiling in my living room and a husband who’s scared of heights. I desperately need a new couch…slipcover is ripped where the velcro is, but refuse with 3 kids that are still young (aka furniture you don’t really care about) and it’s faded from being washed so many times over the course of 10 years.
I love it! You did an amazing job!
This cracks me up, we literally did the same thing! Our living room was blah brown and we painted it a couple months ago to an aqua-ish blue and our curtains are actually orange. Yours are more of a rust and ours are a bright orange but I love the orange and aqua combo too.
I am loving this new color! I think Im over the caramel color too
I have had it for so long and I am ready for a change. Just don’t know what color to do. I already have a blue office…? what do you think?
It just depends on what you feel like! I am loving the blue!
We just recently painted our master bedroom this color and I’m in love. It’s so soothing and a nice change from your typical “neutral” beige.