living room Archives - Page 3 of 6 - Feathers in Our Nest

Living Room {New Paint Job!}

December 16, 2013 by Aliesha

Our living room has a new look!

This is what the room looked like right before it was painted:

But this is what it looked like the last time I took “house tour” photos of it:

Notice how everything was the same color? The gorgeous mantle and trim didn’t stand out at all, since it was cream on cream. We tried using brown under the chair rail but didn’t like how it looked.

Tad’s dad graciously offered to come down and paint the living room for us while we were out of town, and he did a great job!

The trim really pops out from the walls now.

The color we used on the walls is Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter color matched into Olympic no-VOC at Lowe’s in satin finish. The trim is semi-gloss white Olympic no-VOC straight off the shelf.

Pay no attention to the wrinkled curtains. 🙂 I still need to iron/hem them! I wanted to hang them up first and make sure I wanted to keep them (they are the Ikea Vivan curtains – the only ones long enough!). This blue couch is new (to us). It was a $100 Craigslist score (but it’s Pottery Barn and similar to this one, but longer)! The Lord really blessed us by allowing us to get such a good price on it!

I looooove the amazing detail on our front windows, and the lovely light that comes in through the big window on the front door! I’m thinking about adding a film or something to give us a little more privacy, though.

Our mantle really stands out now and you can see all the amazing details in the woodwork!

I still need to paint the French door going into the dining room, but do you see it has 15 panes? It’s going to take a while!

The wardrobe in the corner is very old and came with our house. The coffee table came from Goodwill a while ago.

The brown striped couch and love seat were also Craiglist finds ($40 for both together). The door shown here goes to the girls’ room. The hooks on the wall are from Ikea.

I still have this little table (a yardsale find) by the front door.

We haven’t put anything else back up on the walls yet (I was scurrying to take these photos before we decorated for Christmas and put the tree up!), but I’m thinking about doing a wall of family photos!

Fall Mantle

November 7, 2013 by Aliesha

I’m fashionably late to the fall decorating party, but I managed to decorate my mantle and living room for fall last week!

I really love how it turned out!

Creating a Pillow from a Placemat {the Easy Way!}

October 28, 2013 by Aliesha

I’m all about SIMPLE crafts/DIY projects these days, mainly because I’m too busy for anything crafty that takes longer than 10 minutes!

I whipped up this pillow in less than 10 minutes, and my sweet mother-in-law insisted I blog about it. It’s nothing earth-shattering, but I always enjoy reading about frugal, easy home decor projects, so I’m sharing it!

I found a placemat on clearance at Target (Threshold brand) for $1.18, and I was immediately drawn to it. The fabric is printed, but the texture makes it look embroidered.

I checked the back, and I realized that because of the layers (the back was a light-weight fabric), I could easily turn it into a pillow just by cutting open part of a seam and stuffing it.

If you want to make a pillow like this, you’ll need to find a placemat with a fabric back that is not fused to the front of the placemat. You’ll also need some stuffing! (I actually unstuffed a cheap IKEA pillow and used that for filler.)

Note: A slightly more difficult way of converting a placemat into a pillow is adding a piece of fabric as the backing, sewing it right sides together leaving an opening, turning it right side out, and stuffing.

Using a needle and scissors (or a seam ripper), carefully remove the threads on one seam to create an opening wide enough to allow you to stuff the pillow.