Living Room Changes

     You all have heard me say many times that we have a small house. We're always in search of ways to maximize our space and make it work for our big family. That being said we have been marinating on some ideas for our living room.

     This is an old picture but it illustrates our issues:

1}     Not enough storage!

2}     Not enough seating for whole family.


     The fireplace is a fake one. Seriously, its a QVC special from quite a few years ago. {You can actually use gel fuel canisters so its gives you the heat and look of the real thing, but I don't care for the smell of them!}

     We've been mulling over the economical options and here's what we're planning:

First we would like wall to wall shelving along the fireplace wall {fireplace will be sold on craigslist}. IKEA has the cheapest/best options. We are going to do something like this but in white. Once its put together we'll add some molding and make it look built in:

     A unit like this would give us a lot of options for storage. While at IKEA on a recent trip we picked up one of the units {without the doors yet} to see how we liked the height and presence in the room:

     I love the height and can't wait to fill the wall!


     The next change we anticipate making is seating! Again the couch and chair with the leaf pattern will be sold on craigslist to make room for a small sectional. When we went to IKEA with the kiddos we tried out one of their sectionals and WE ALL FIT!

     To see if it would fit in our room I taped it out.

     Obviously the striped chair will need a new location, but I think its going to work well! Tape is a great way to see if something will work in a room. We left this down for 3-4 days to make sure we liked the size. It will change things a bit but its worth the sacrifice in floor space {so that we don't have to sit on the floor}.

{As a side note: my littlest guy thinks its funny to somehow get a piece of him into my blog photos! Gonna miss that boy when he's in kindergarten next year!}



     So we will see what the tax return brings this year!






I'm sharing this here:

Between naps on the porch
i should be mopping the floor