The Apprentice...

Every once in a while I get the itch to switch things up in my home. I am a big believer in atmosphere, especially in our homes. The recent season of my life leaves me at home more and more and because of that we are often having people over. I want my home to be a safe place for my family where we can sit down and read a book, sit on a sofa and get lost in conversation, or lose track of time over a meal. Too often the hustle and bustle of life intrudes upon these "moments" and we are looking backward wondering where all the time has gone.

All of that to say, that I am always looking for creative and inexpensive ways to create a warm and inviting atmosphere in my home. Since the talented redesigner spends a lot of time in my home, she has inspired me to use what I have and update a room by looking at it with fresh eyes. So I decided to try my hand at this with our living room.

Our Accent wall - BEFORE

Our home is an open floor plan with the dining room, living room, and kitchen all blending together. Because of that I have to be very careful what I chose to do in  each room or everything will clash. We have a wonderful warm neutral color on our walls and had accented it with a raisin color. However we were growing tired of it and wanted to open up the room more.

This took us an afternoon. Thanks to the new combo paint and primer paints available. Another are we had struggled with our fireplace. Again we wanted to update look of the fireplace but were unsure how to do it. I did some Internet research and decided that whitewashing our brick would be an inexpensive compromise.

Whitewash on the fireplace

Another fun project we took on was updating the picture over the piano. We wanted to tie in our new fun fabric so we bought some sheets of scrapbook paper and reframed our picture.

I still have one more section of the room to work on but am waiting on inspiration. Until then I am anxiously awaiting the redesign fairy to show up and grade my endeavors. ;-)

After...sort of