The Family Room

For my first post, I'm going to show you my family room.  Its closer than any other room in our to actually being finished (Is any room ever really finished though?  Not here!  Sorry hon!)  When we bought our house two years ago, this is what it looked like on our walk through:



Before





Before

  The pictures don't really show the gray sponge painting on the wall that was sooo depressing.  I love grey rooms, but not this grey.  It was like forever being stuck in a dreary, overcast day.  Yuck!  The ceiling fan went buh-bye and for the most dramatic change, so did the grey brick on the fireplace.  See ya!  Oh and don't worry about that little snippet of mega country wallpaper you see.  We took care of that as well!

I had just had a baby though.  Literally, you see, since I went into labor on move in day.  Argh! (That was NOT how I planned our move!) So I painted the walls and tried to live with the rest.  The cool colors of the fireplace just did not go with the warm colors of the rest of the room.  Here is a picture of the in between stage of the room:

We also had an issue with the opposite side of the room and this huge empty wall.  There was no way our little console was enough to fill that wall.
See:

It was so hard to relax in here because everytime I sat down, all its deficiencies GLARED at me.    I know it looks so barren.  I am embarrassed to say we lived with it like this for a year. 


I knew something had to be done about the coolness of the fireplace, but my husband nearly had a heart attack when I mentioned  A)  painting the brick   or B) removing the brick.  What is it with men when it comes to either painting over wood or in my case, brick?  I could see right away that that fighting for its removal was a lost battle before it even started, but the painting of it, well, I had been doing some research and I had an idea!  Did you know you can stain your brick?  It doesn't change the texture of it and it gives it a whole new look! More on this whole process next time.
So, after a little convincing, I had my husband on my side and I stained the brick.  After that and a little furniture rearranging, some painting of the ceiling, curtains, etc we finally got this:

I just noticed the reflection of my red pants almost makes it look like I have a fire going in the fireplace!  Well, kinda.

A closer view of the curtains and blinds.  I LOVE that lamp too!

A closer shot of the shelves:

A garage sale find:

I know it seems like there is a lot of open space in the middle of the room, but we have two boys, 4 and 2yrs old, and the ottoman is the only thing that I can imagine holding up to them right now.  I am forever moving the couch away from the wall because all the boys in the house seem to push it back everytime they plop sit down. 
And my first confession of many, I am sure:  I have many empty picture frames throughout my house.  I wish I could say I just bought these frames, but they've been empty for a while.  I have a thing for frames and love buying them.  Why I can't just fill them right away, I'll never know.  Here is what I'm talking about:

and

(That couple's picture in the small frame?  Not us.  The other frame is empty too, but its hard to tell from this picture *sigh*) 

So now you've seen my family room!  Its a work still in progress.  Since these photos were taken, there is a beautiful brown and aqua pillow with birds on the large chair.  I just love the blue accents throughout the room.  The shelves need tweaking and I am still unsure of that painting above the couch.  At first glance, it doesn't really go with the side pictures, but they I think I don't want them to be too matchy-matchy either.  What are your thoughts?

I'll be back next time with the details of how I stained my brick fireplace.

Thanks for stopping by!