Living Room Makeover, Step 1

As I previously mentioned, I spent a good deal of last week painting our living room. I am now going to talk about it in great detail, which I understand has a good chance of being very boring, but I just painted a whole room by myself, and I want to brag about it.

I picked out the paint on Wednesday. I knew I wanted a yellow-green color, a compromise between Christian's preferred green and my desire to have our whole downstairs in different shades of yellow. I looked at all the choices at Lowe's, and, true to my color-picking philosophy, picked out a color and went with it before I had time to over-think. I also cleaned the outside of Christian's desk, clearing it of years of dirty finger marks and pencil scribblings -- the difference is incredible; I only wish that I had taken a before and after shot.

I moved all of our furniture into the center of the room first thing on Thursday morning {except for the couch, which I put on its side and slid into the hall, where I ended up continually walking on it all day}, and took down pictures and curtains. Then I cleaned the baseboards, taped {because I know I'm not good enough to paint without tape}, ran out of tape, bought more tape, and finished taping. I painted two coats -- cutting in twice, and using the roller twice. I let it dry overnight; Christian and I went to his parents' house in the evening so as not to be bored out of our minds without the TV.

On Friday I took down all the tape, did some minor touch-ups {I learned from the dining room fiasco and kept extra paint around for that specific purpose}, majorly touched-up the baseboards, meaning I gave them an entirely new coat of paint, and installed new electrical sockets and light switches. Christian came home early {thank you, summer hours!} and helped me put the furniture back into place. He also helped me figure out all the cords to hook the computer and TV back up, which made a job I could have done by myself so much easier. We put the pictures back on the walls, re-installed the curtain rod, and I even {for the first time in two years} washed our sliding glass door.

Here's how it looks now:

If I could go back and do it again, I would probably pick a lighter, yellower shade, but I'm really very happy with it. You can see the seat cushion I got at World Market for our computer chair; my butt has not stopped thanking me since. And, I know this isn't everyone's taste, but I love how the green of the cushion clashes with the green of the wall. Love it!

I would also go back and not wash our curtains, which were in the house when we moved in. They were seriously grody before, but after putting them through the several dryer cycles necessary to get them entirely dry, they are now a good six inches shorter than before. And they look ridiculous. And we didn't realize they had shrunk until Christian and I had each spent 20 minutes ironing them. Blerg.

This is only step 1 of our living room makeover because of two things. Well, actually now because of three things. 1: The wall around the TV looks very blank; I need to figure out what to put on that wall. 2: A new couch would really help our room look awesome. I am working on acquiring one, but it still might take a while. If you would like to take pity on me and speed up this process, you could always hire me to design your blog. All proceeds go to my new couch fund. 3: I don't know what to do about our curtains.