Progress Reveal: Our Cali Casual Living Room

I thought today we could get you some reveal photos of our cali casual living room, since we probably won't be getting to much else in the room for quiet a bit with our baby boy on the way. The two most important rooms on our to-do-before-baby-arrives list were the living room (initial plan here)  and nursery. I'm happy to say we finished those and now can proceed to hurry up and wait for the little man.

Here is a refresher of where we started with the room on move in day just a few months ago.

And now that we put in some major elbow grease:

Our first step was to refinish the heart pine hardwoods so that we could move my mother in and officially become a multigenerational family. Painting the room being a very close second, I knew that we couldn't handle the bright yellow paint for long. The yellow proved to be extremely difficult to cover up even though we used a high quality paint. Since we do have numerous yellow rooms in this house (shoot me now) and will certainly be starting with a quality primer next time and then moving onto paint.

Last night we were sitting and discussing how far this particular room has come in such a short time and realized that only 4-5 big furniture items were purchased brand new, the rest is a combination of do-it-yourself (coffee table), antiques (the $40 ladder) ,vintage finds (mid-mod chairs, recliner), or a steal from craigslist!

The fireplace was bricked in previously and covered with wood paneling, so we removed the paneling and put up a ventless ethanol fireplace we've had since probably 2012. After we drilled and mounted the sucker to the brick we realized the actual burner is missing from the unit and probably got lost or thrown away in the move.

So hopefully we can find a replacement since fixing and lining the fireplace won't be in the budget for some years, and we really don't like just having an unusable fake mantle area.

Earlier this week I I told you all about the new Mid-Century dining table we found for a steal on craigslist (which is one of many mid-mod pieces we have accumulated over the last few years). Well I basically hit publish and found yet another amazing piece, on craigslist, for a steal!

I told you in our last living room post we were saving (forever) for Mitch's dream chair, a stressless ekornes recliner, but it has become apparent that just can't be a priority for us very soon. So I had this little thought that maybe I could find him something to tide him over for an early christmas gift. Low and behold this beautiful piece was for sale, and although the seller had to refurbish with paint due to the veneer needing removal, it still looks great.

I took Mitch with me to try the baby out and he loves it! I was in shock, just been some lucky finds lately, and this amazing dada deserved a chair he loves.

We replaced the hammered metal chandeliers with something much more modern, and  love that it seems to bring this 1847 Colonial right into the modern area, without messing with any architectural details.

You can find the ceiling fixture here. We also snagged two sconces from CB2 to replace the chandelier that had to be completely removed due to the atrocious electrical job the previous owner's had done (like this house should have burned down years ago).

On the other side of this large room we have a little seating nook with more vintage and craigslist finds (mama loves to curl up on that big arm chair and drink her tea), and of course a play area for our daughter.

The built in bench has officially been turned into a toy box with the addition of some soft close hinges for little fingers.

This play area will undoubtedly change after Christmas with the addition of a play kitchen and refurbished kids seating area, but for now it really does a good job of keeping her entertained.

We have a few more things to do over the course of next year like: hide the tv cords, paint all the trim, fix interiors of built in cabinetry (from the 70's), find a durable area rug (at a great price hopefully), replace a patch in the hardwood floor with heart pine, and art work since its a little bland.

Right now we are just so excited not to have the yellow anymore and to have the space livable as we transition from a one child family into having two children.