A Fresh, New Look

As I mentioned in my previous post, we started our living room makeover last week, beginning with the walls and the floors. Since Bubba and I both work full time during the week, we called in some serious reinforcements to help us speed up the painting process. This guy (on the left):

Meet Pa, my retired, expert carpenter/painter/handyman extraordinaire grandfather. He is beyond precise and is always willing to lend a helping hand when we need it. 

We placed the painters tape and picked up where he left off once we got  home from work, so it made for a REALLY fast paint job. If you follow me on twitter (@PtBreezeCottage) you got to see a little sneak peek of the wall color. I haven't taken any pictures of JUST the walls or the paint job, but you will be able to see a little glimpse in the photos below.

Not only did Pa help us out with the paint job, but he also stuck around over the weekend to help Bubba lay our new flooring. Now; some people may think it seems odd to cover up original, hardwood floors with laminate Swiftlock flooring from Lowes, but we needed to. We think that the original floors that we had/have are actually the sub-flooring from the original 1929 house. Which is really cool and true to the house, but it's also really hard on our electric bill in both the summer and winter. Did I mention that we also had grass growing up through the living room floor once? Yeah...the joys of having an old house on piers instead of a foundation and sub-flooring with little to no insulation under it. It was only a matter of time before one of us fell through the weak spots in the living room.

The original floor:

Not terrible, and very "rustic", but it just wasn't working for us. So we went to Lowes, purchased some lovely Fireside Oak laminate, and got down to business.

The original flooring side-by-side with the new laminate. Affordable and efficient!

The new floor:

Don't mind the beagle-cat on the couch. She was feeling mighty displaced during all of this work!

I'm so happy with the way it turned out, just beautiful! Oh and did you notice the "Swizzle Stick" blue and "Desert Fortress" wall colors?!  Once we've got the room back in order, our new slip cover and window treatments up, I'll be glad to show some more revealing photos ;o)

Living Room Makeover - The Beginning

As I mentioned recently in my "Living Room Inspiration" post, I've been putting a lot of serious thought into a makeover for our living room. Here is a little back-story as to why:

Before we purchased this beautiful, old 1929 cottage, we rented it. One of the conditions of renting was that it was almost fully furnished. At the time, this sounded like the perfect deal seeing as I'd just graduated from college and really didn't own anything of my own anyway. And it's not that the style of the house (specifically the living room) wasn't nice, it just wasn't MY style. But while we rented I dealt with it...beggars can't be choosers, right? Right. Then we purchased the house, and our former landlord left several pieces, which we're very thankful for, but again, they just aren't our style.

So, it's just over two years since we've purchased the house and we've gotten rid of most of the furniture that she left, but the house still just doesn't seem "homey" our like it's "ours". Every time I see that yellowish orange paint in the living room, I think of the former landlord. Again, not that it's a bad thing, it's just not right for us. Everything I've used to decorate the living room up until this point has had to work around the wall color. I just couldn't make anything work with the golden tone except reds, greens, and a little blue. It was hard to get out of that color scheme and see any other possibilities.

After a trip to Lowes with my mom, I shared with her that I'd been holding on to a color pallet sample book since about 2009, but I wasn't sure if the dark blues and turquoise would be "too much". She encouraged me to go with what I love, and the more I thought about it, the more I agreed. Our house has LOTS of beautiful white trim along the baseboards, windows, and a loft just off the living room. If anything could hold up against a dark blue, it would be the white accents.

We are currently in the process of getting the living room painted, but I wanted to share some "before" photos with you first. Take a look at what we're working with. Then go check out my "living room inspiration" board on Pinterest and let me know how you think it will turn out! Any suggestions? Advice? Leave a comment, I'd love to get your feedback.

View from the kitchen looking towards the front of the house (living room).

View from the front door looking back. The "living room" is actually quite big and pretty much doubles as a dining room.

From the front corner, a view of the raised ceiling and loft. Lots of white trim, doors, etc.

Looking at the living room from the bedrooms - please try to ignore the MESS! We were prepping for taping/painting.

Second view from the bedrooms, just more inclusive of the side of the house/bay of windows.

I think this room is screaming for some cohesion and style - Goodbye strange, golden, impossible to work with colored paint!