The Old House: A Small Update to Remember

It's flashback Friday, and I am sad to say that the old house is no more... but I found this old post from my past blog and had to share it. With the sadness of selling this house comes a new and fresh beginning in my new home, which I can't wait to start posting about! But... seeing as how it's only been about 5 days here, it may take me a while. But for now, enjoy this blast from the past!

I love to change things around in our home. Maybe move some furniture here, change some paintings there. Nothing too crazy, but just enough to change the feel of a space and give me a warm little ball of happiness to hold onto. I would love to go nuts and get all new furniture, new artwork, change our awful tiling that I hate to beautiful mahogany hardwood floors, and so on. But lets be honest... we live in San Diego, where she sucks your paychecks dry in gasoline and mortgages. Large remodels are not in the cards at the moment. That being said, I went on a hunt for little things I could do around the house to make it more of a home, instead of just a house we're dwelling in for the time being. The pictures don't even begin to do it justice, but I am so happy with the little changes I've made so far.

The first thing, and I mean literally the first thing, we did when we got the keys to the house was painting the walls. Painting was a nightmare, especially with our slanted ceilings, but thankfully I put the guys to work and it was done fairly quickly with a few mishaps here and there. The color is a beautiful rich grey from the Behr paint line called Grey Squirrel.

I apologize for all of the weird lightening in the pictures. It was taken before we had installed the recessed lights and ceiling fans in the living room, so all we were working with was our entryway light. Yes, I know... we basically were living in a dungeon. So, onto the small details. The first purchase I made was the Hemnes coffee table from Ikea in black-brown and the beige rug which it sits on. When we first moved in, we had the matching ottoman to our couch in the living room, but it was extremely large and bulky for our long, narrow living room. I knew I wanted a coffee table, as well as a rug to keep some warmth on our toes from our freezing, completely tiled house (don't get me started on that...) Since our sectional is brown and our floors are 2 different shades of a dark grey, I knew I wanted some extra large couch pillows to take away from the eye-sore. I bought these pillow covers off of Amazon.com (and for only $12!! The other ones I wanted on Etsy were almost $60 EACH!) and filled them with the 26" pillow inserts sold at Ikea. That alone made a huge difference!Am I the only one who loves to snuggle up and make my own little fort of comfort in giant pillows?! If you haven't tried it... DO IT!

Okay, before you comment on my oddly misplaced deer head on the mantle, you should know that they are no longer hung there. There sole purpose was to pick at my sister since she kept telling me how awful it looked, and me, being the stubborn sister that I am, had to leave it there for all of the photos I sent her. For a quick recap of what we were working with, here is a picture of the living room in the past before we moved in,

I'll miss you always, old house... just remember, you were my first home, but now it's time for greener pastures and new updates. My handle on decorating back then... not so great. I can't wait to show you how things are so much different now!