Living Room Update - Coffee Table Redo

As I mentioned in the seahorse wall hanging post, I have been working to update our living room that was without furniture for a few weeks. We had this coffee table stored under our stairs since we moved in. It was my mom’s and was just stained wood and when Stephen and I moved into our first apartment we painted it black. It was really scratched up and not in a rustic or in style way. I also think it really weighed down the room and made it too dark and didn’t work as well with our new rug – which was the inspiration for the entire room.

So I used the same blue paint from the seahorse project and put on a fresh coat over the table. I sanded it down exposing a lot of the black paint and then ran some black tinted glaze over the table.

I love the way it turned out. It is like a brand new piece of furniture and it didn’t cost a penny because we used what we already had! My kind of project!

Here is what the living room is looking like today!

I love how bright and airy it feels. We just installed the new curtains. We got the grommet panels from IKEA, they come with 2 panels in a pack and are 98 inches long for $29.99 – you just can’t beat that price. I believe they have other colors but I just wanted white so I can easily change out the rest of the decor when I get bored of it – which happens a lot. BTW – when Stephen hung the rods for me (because I am 8.5 months pregnant and need to remember what I can and shouldn’t do 🙂 ), I created a template to make it easy and not have to do a ton of measuring. I got the idea from this blog and it worked like a charm. We hung the rod 7 inches above the windows and 5 inches out from each side. We have high ceilings and it fills the space well while making the space feel bigger.

Here is the view from the dining room.

Of course the seahorse wall hanging on the little wall between the living room and dining room.

I got this owl vase from All That Stuff in the Barn in Midway during Swiss Days.

I haven’t decided where it will go but while taking pictures it seemed he would make a great greeter for any visitors! Royce had to check him out.

Speaking of Royce, he was just hanging around while I was taking pictures today. He is so regal and I love his floppy little ears!

Back to the living room decor. I don’t know if you noticed, but the pieces I have above the couch just don’t really seem to fit in the space now. The scale seems off and I am not sure what colors I want – I think we have enough blue right now but am not sure what to use now.

I was thinking that a frame collage would work well but with the stairs next to it with my empty frame collage that might be a little much, don’t you think?