My Living Room Phase 1 Plans

Last Updated on December 24, 2015 by Kristi Linauer

Oh, I have such plans for my living room!  But my long term plans include such things as removing the polystyrene ceiling tiles and re-drywalling the ceiling, building walls, switching out two tall windows for much shorter ones, building a bookcase and fireplace along one wall, adding beautiful wainscoting on the walls, and wallpapering the upper part of the walls with some gorgeous grasscloth.

Yeah.  That’s the long term plan.

But for now, I need a short-term, attainable, Phase 1 plan for my neglected living room.  And as much as I’d like to just focus only on my bedroom until it’s completely finished, I’d also like to get some stuff done in my living room so that I don’t want to crawl in a hole and hide in shame when people come to my front door.  Because, let’s face it, this is just not the first impression I’d like to make on visitors.

I took these pictures at about 10:00pm last night.  So the answer to your question is, “Yes, I still have these curtains hanging up that were in the house when we closed almost three months ago.”

And yes, that one panel really is hanging on by one solitary drapery pin, and I haven’t even given it a thought or done anything to fix it.  Why spend precious time fixing something that won’t look any better after it’s fixed than it does now?  Nope.  Those precious minutes are best spent elsewhere.

It’s just a sad display, right?  The only good thing anyone could say about this room is that the floors look good.

So I can’t really focus on my long-term vision for this room just yet.  Not only because I need to save up some money, have lots of time to dedicate to such a large project, perhaps find some willing and able people to help, and just gear up mentally for the huge job that is drywalling, but also because we need to have our foundation leveled before I can do any sort of major construction-type projects like building walls.  Right now our floors are a bit…ummmm…wavy.

So I definitely need a “Phase 1” plan for this room so that I can be confident when opening the front door to visitors.

My plan will start with this fabric that I fell in love with from P. Kaufmann called Florabunda Sea Glass.

Blues and greens.  What else would you expect?  🙂

I’ve ordered that fabric, and it’s on the way.  I’ll be using it only on the big window, and then for accents here and there.

The two smaller windows will be covered in my absolute favorite Maple Providence bamboo Roman shades from Home Depot.  They’re the same ones that I used in the condo…

And in fact, I use them in just about every room I decorate.  I love the warmth that they add to a room, and I LOVE the fact that they’re actually privacy shades, as opposed to most bamboo or natural grass shades that offer little to no privacy at night unless you line them (which I might eventually do anyway just so that they’re white from the exterior of the house, but it’s good to not have to worry about that immediately).

On the walls, I’ll have to wait for grasscloth and gorgeous wainscoting.  This is the look I want for my walls eventually.

Via Elle Decor (sorry, I don’t have a direct link to that picture)But for now, I’ll just have to settle for paint and a chair rail. Above the chair rail, I think I’m going to use a Behr color called Breakfast Blend…

I’ll be testing it out on the wall today, so we’ll see if I stick with it or not. I’ll let you know if I decide on something else.

Below the chair rail, I’ll be using the same white that I used in the condo called Polar Bear (also by Behr). I thought I might change to a different white in the house, but after thinking about it and looking at the options, I decided to stick with what’s tried and true for me. So Polar Bear it is.

Now on the ceiling, unfortunately the polystyrene tiles have to stay for now. I’m going to tackle the ceiling in the bedroom and the hallway before I even think about tearing apart the ceiling in other areas of the house. (You have no idea how much self-control that takes from me!!! 😀 )

But while I have to live with the tiles, I don’t have to live with the chrome chandelier. So I’ll be swapping it out for my new chandelier that I purchased from Home Depot (for less than $100!!).

Since the current chandelier is in a very strange place (just kind of floating oddly between the living room and the entryway), and I’m not planning on doing any electrical work during this Phase 1 of decorating, I’ll have to swag the chandelier over into its proper place. Not ideal, but it’ll work.

So that’s what I’ll be working on in the next couple of days. I’ll keep you posted on my progress, and I’ll be sharing my furniture plan with you this week also.

Commencing Phase 1 decorating… 🙂