Living Room Tour and Plans for the Future

I thought today would be the perfect time to share with you guys another "progress update" on one of the rooms in our new apartment.  I enjoyed sharing my office and the plans I had for it so much that I thought I would go through each room in a similar way.  Then hopefully after sharing a tour of each room and what I want to get done in there, I will have a full and complete battle plan to-do list for the entire apartment.

Today I'm going to be sharing a peak into how my living room is looking a little over 4 months after moving in.  I just cannot believe it has been that long.  I still feel as if we are in the "moving in" stage.  I guess it just takes me some time to really settle into a place and have it start coming together as my home.

Last time I showed you the living room, it looked something like this:

And I am so happy to report that this room has made leaps and bounds since I last showed it on the blog.  About two months of slow progress and a mad-cleaning-dash-before-company-comes later, and I give you the current state of our living room:

It's still not perfect, but at least it doesn't look like a bomb went off in here.  There truly is nothing like the feeling of actually being able to walk around in a room after months of the floor being covered in stuff.  I feel like I can actually breathe again, and start focusing on the fun stuff, like decor!

Above is the view you see standing on our entryway landing.  From there you have to go down a couple steps to the first floor.  As you go down the steps this is what you're greeted with:

That's a whole bunch of white.  Since we're on the third floor, we have extra high ceilings, which is freaking awesome, but also makes those blank walls that much more obvious.  I'm ashamed to say we have now been in our apartment 4 months, and not a single thing has been hung on a wall.  I just keep getting stuck on the fear that I'll hang something up, then change my mind after it's too late.  I'm nearing the tipping point though, and have just about had enough of the never ending sea of blank walls that is our apartment.  I think a hammer and level will be in my future very shortly!

I also have some plans for filling up this sad little corner.  For now it's just housing a homeless shelf and a snow shovel (which belongs in our storage closet on the balcony that someone may have lost the key to...my bad).  I'm hoping to eventually put a cute accent chair in this corner, and maybe a side table if I can fit it.  There will definitely be some art hung to the right of the doorway.  I'm thinking maybe two medium sized prints hung one on top of the other.  Or maybe a 4x4 grid of frames.  Who knows, we'll have to see what kind of art ends up without a home after we get some stuff hung.

This little desk used to be Melissa's desk in the old apartment.  But since we moved to an apartment with a dedicated office, she was able to upgrade to a much larger work space.  Since this little guy was still a perfectly fine desk, we decided to move it downstairs and re-purpose it as a general household desk.  I'm picturing an awesome bill paying station for this spot.  The wall above the desk will definitely get some function added to it, whether it's shelves or some sort of command center.  Buying a chair for this guy is still on the to-do list, but will probably wait until we actually set it up to be usable.

Swinging around, you'll be looking directly back at the living room.  And please excuse the off-centered TV.  I moved it to use the white console as a photography background, and didn't notice that I didn't move the TV back until I was editing these pictures...oops!

This is another view that I'm just eating up right now, since a couple months ago it looked something like this:

Now I'm just thankful that all walkways are available for actually walking and not clutter storage.

I also need to focus some time and attention on this beauty here.  I had wanted a sofa table for quite some time now, so I was thrilled that the layout of our new apartment would allow me to fulfill that dream.  Unfortunately for now, this guy has been dedicated to storing a bunch of stuff (really starting to hate that word and how much of it I have!) until we can dig in and find new homes for it.

Once that happens, I can't wait to just dive in and organize the heck out of it.  I'm going back and forth about adding bins into each of the larger cubbies on the bottom.  I'm playing around with the idea of some baskets like these, I think having four of those lined up could look really nice.  But I also like the idea of open storage for photo albums, cookbooks and old yearbooks... kind of like we have it vaguely setup now.  Still not sure what will end up in the smaller cubbies up top, but I'm sure I'll find something to stash away in there!

Looking over the couch, you''ll be facing the TV wall.  Again, please pretend the TV is centered ;).  I have big, big plans for this wall.  Eventually we'll be buying two tall bookcases to flank either side of the TV console.  I'm hoping this will give a built-in effect when all is said and done.  I am also thinking about adding some black and white prints above the TV, in either a 1x3 or 2x3 grid, depending on the height of the bookcases.

I also clearly need to come up with a plan for all the extra pillows that are taking over that corner.  Most will be stored outside in the storage closet once we find the key, since they are meant to be used with the patio furniture.  I also need to style and organize the TV console, because it too is filled with, you guessed it, stuff.

Turning around to the other side of the room, it's a pretty simple view.  I'm really hoping filling up those walls and styling the top of the sofa table will add some dimension and excitement to this side of the room.  I am also counting down the days until we can replace this sofa.  We had one all picked out and ready to go, until we found out it was just to big for our space.  Basically, even if it were up against the half wall on the right in the picture below, we would still only have about a foot of clearance to get  between the sofa and sliding glass door on the other side.  So back to the drawing board with that.

We really have our hearts set on getting a sofa with a chaise on one end.  We love the idea of having enough room for both of us to really spread out and get comfy while watching a movie.  I'm picturing a nice soft grey couch with a bunch of fun and colorful pillows.  This side of the room could especially use a good dose of color.  Melissa and I have also briefly discussed replacing the coffee table for something slightly smaller to give us a little more room, since the living room is one of the smaller rooms of our home.  The current table is just too big, and things really get lost and cluttered on the bottom shelf.

I can't wait to see where this room ends up, and hope I can accomplish at least half of what I'm planning!!  To keep things simple, here is a complete to-do list for the living room as it stands now:

• fill up corner at the bottom of the stairs (I'm thinking an accent chair with a side table)
• get art on the walls (wall to the right of the kitchen door and wall above the TV)
• set-up mini desk as bill pay station (command center/shelves on wall, buy a chair, style desk-top and fill with necessary office supplies)
• buy bookcases to flank TV console
• style and organize sofa table and TV console
• replace sofa
• replace coffee table?
• buy textiles (throw pillows, rug, curtains for sliding glass door)

And I think that's it!  What do you guys think?  A heck of a lot better than the horror show I showed you a couple months ago right?  Are you as slow getting a room or entire apartment set-up as I am?  I guess I like to take my time and make sure I'm confident in my final decision.  Any suggestions for what I should be doing with this room?  It's always great getting someone else's opinion, sometimes there's an idea you never would have thought of that turns out to be perfect!  So bring it on :) I'd love your input in the comments!