Home renovations & redecorating!!

I think Kelly had me in mind this week when she chose living rooms for her "Show us where you live Friday" because this week our new living room furniture came in and we're so close to being done with all of our redecorating! I am so excited to share the following photos with everyone because I used to lovingly and jokingly refer to my home as the "builder beige" house. Everything in the main part of our house was beige! Our bedrooms are decorated so well, but we could never quite get a handle on how we would decorate the main part of our house, and my husband (unlike many) wants to have a say in the decorating here because he designed our home (he designs custom homes for he and his dad's company!). Now though, I am so excited about how warm and cozy our home is and Scott loves it too. We just have a few final touches to do and it will be perfect!

Living Room couches BEFORE:

Living Room couches AFTER:

new couches, new pillows

The plainer pillows are a tweed fabric (see bottom of this post) and came with the couches. We got to pick our couch fabric and the pillows fabric. The "busier" pillows were on clearance at Kohls and I snagged them for only 5 bucks each!

Fireplace BEFORE:

Just to give you an idea of how the room is set up, sitting on the couch, you would face the fireplace

Fireplace AFTER:

We got the new painting from our bridesmaids as a wedding shower gift and it was hanging in our bedroom, but we switched it out to the living room because it matches the new decor' so well! The funky vases were also a wedding gift and I found the new magazine basket at Kohls for $3!

Built-in entertainment center BEFORE:

Built-in entertainment center AFTER:

Scott designed these built-in cabinets and I wanted them to be less cluttered so I reorganized things, added some and took some away. I'm not 100% sure I like all of the things we have on the shelves yet, but we'll switch it up as I find new things! Oh yes, and one note, the TV fits into the alcove, but we had it angled out last night to watch Greys so it looks funny here!

Dining room BEFORE:

Dining room AFTER:

Our living room, dining room and kitchen are all one open area in our open floor plan so we continued our same warm colors into where we dine! And while I don't like the cluttered look of having Jaden and Sienna's kitchen set in our dining room, O well, they're only young once :)

Wall between big living room windows and sliding glass door in dining room BEFORE:

Wall between big living room windows and sliding glass door in dining room AFTER:

I had this custom made through Creative Memories and I LOVE it! It says Family Matters. at the bottom and was a play on words because it showcases some of our family matters and it shows that our family matters most. I'm going to put one of our new family pictures in the center frame, but I have to pick which one today!

This is the AFTER view of our entire living room looking from the front door. My husband personally made the sconces along the top of our living room walls out of stainless steel and they are gorgeous! The design of our room is so wonderful overall thanks to my designer hubby, and now it looks so great with the new furniture and new look!

Close-up of the new couch & pillows:

A little design touch that I love. If you stand at our front door looking into the living room (like in the picture above), you will also see two columns on either side of the room with two perfect little shelves for me to put photos of my darling girls on!

Closer up picture of the new art on the dining room wall:

And one last thing...my hubby just put handles on our kitchen cupboards and drawers! He built our house 4 years ago but we just could never decide on which handles to put on until now. It gives the kitchen a much more finished, crisp look and I LOVE them!

Now onto the final touches we're going to finish up on our living room:

On the wall shown below which divides part of our kitchen from our living room I've started a photo gallery with these b/w pictures of our girls, but I'm going to be adding some more photos soon. I can't wait until the wall is filled with family photos! I'll be sure to post an updated photo when I get it done :)

We're going to have curtains made for our sliding glass doors in the dining room and for our big living room window. The fabric swatch below is from our couch pillows and we're thinking of incorporating it into the curtains.

Finally, we're going to be ordering new end tables and a coffee table in natural cherry wood, which is the wood our built-in cabinets, kitchen cabinets and dining room table are made of. Most people hear cherry wood and think of the dark cherry typically found in furniture stores, but ours is cherry wood that is not stained dark. My sister says it's the color of oak, but I always remind her that the wood is much less grainy and a better quality wood overall.

Well, I really hope you've enjoyed your tour of my living room, dining room and part of my kitchen. I am so excited about the new furniture and decorations (have I said that enough yet?!) so I think I'll now go and sit down on my new comfy couch and relax a bit!