casa good life: living room and dining room!

I'm back today with some more photos of my home here on the blog!  As I mentioned earlier (see my office tour here), when we remodeled our main floor part of the changes included switching up the floor plan a bit. This entire room used to be considered just the living room but with the room being so long and narrow it was hard to fully take advantage of the space.  We had previously had a very small eating area off of the kitchen but it could only provide room enough for a small round table to seat four. Not exactly enough room for a family or any guests for that matter.  So we split the long and narrow living room into two areas: a living area AND a nice big dining area.

As you can see below the space splits in half with the fireplace and the dining area is to the right while the living area is to the left.  This area used to have carpet and the new wood floors make this open plan  an obvious set up and easy to pull off (plus, I wouldn't have wanted carpet in the dining room, it just wouldn't have worked before).

The sofa is a KIVIK from IKEA and previously was split into a love seat and a chaise, but for this floor plan we put them together along the wall. (that is the awesome thing about the KIVIK, it can be added on to or taken apart like legos!).  No one can ever believe that we have a white sofa, but I absolutely love it. Yes, the kids (and me!) get it dirty, but it wipes clean easily or the covers can go in the wash.  And I have to admit that I am guilty of buying new white covers from time to time too (they are super cheap!).  My husband is always bugging me to get darker covers from IKEA but I just don't think it would work in this room. (the throw pillows are Home Goods, the shearling throw is IKEA and the plaid blanket is from Old Navy, the coffee table is a craigslist find).

Another change we made to the living area was to put the tv above the fireplace. We had an electrician put a cable/power outlet above the fireplace and then I did a few magic tricks to get the cords to disappear!  The power strip is plugged in and placed on top of the mounting bracket behind the tv and the cable and apple tv boxes are stuck with 3M strips to the wall just behind the tv so that the remotes still work, but so you can't see them. Brilliant!  The mantle is simply an IKEA Lack shelf.

Here the bar cart & pillows are from Target, the animal head is from Home Goods, the chairs are IKEA and again this coffee table (one of my favorite pieces) is a craigslist find.  I do EVERYTHING at home on a budget knowing that my family will be "living" in the space and that is what my budget allows. 

I was like a kid in a candy store when I realized we could get a BIG table for the living room area.  This table is from World Market (watch the sales, I think I got this one for only $400).  I love that it can seat six or more because I really love to entertain. So far this table has stood up to the kids' use and spills etc.  It's one of my favorite pieces!

The chairs are overstock.com, the light is West Elm, the rug is IKEA.  The framed feathers always get a lot of comments. My kids found them at the park a few summers ago with their sitter, I instantly wanted to frame them! They are so huge and cool looking. I later found out they are wild turkey feathers, which we have a lot of in this area. So they aren't exactly rare, but they sure are cool! Plus, they are basically free art!

The chest below is an antique store purchase, the wooden bowl is from Home Goods, the chalkboard is a curbside find - I found the frame and DIY'd the chalkboard and the racoon head I found on clearance at Anthropologie awhile back.

Really the only NEW things we bought for this space was the light fixture, the table, a few more chairs (I already had four at my old table) and the bar cart.  It's amazing what a little white paint and new floors can do to dramatically change the look and feel of my home.  It made all the furniture I already owned look and feel new!

I hope you enjoyed this peek into my home!

see you around...

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