At last...

Well, here we are, finally finished with the living room.  I spent today tweaking the placement of furniture and decided you can see it now.

 This is the original, what we saw when we looked at the house.  A friend asked yesterday "how did you see what you could do with this???"  Well, all I knew was it had to be lighter.  That spindle railing had to go and raising the sunken two steps down living room floor was a bonus fix.  The before pics  are fuzzy because they came off my iPad. And it looks much lighter than it actually was.

 Same room, different look!  White, white, white! And I am SO happy to have my books back at my fingertips.  It's a big room and I like that.  We had a big living room at the other house so this feels right.

 Notice that dark, dark fireplace wall!  And on the very left the spindle divider at the steps that go to the basement.  They had it roped because the spindles aren't code and so they had to do something to protect their little girl.  We had those spindles taken down and a half wall built.  What a difference THAT made!

And now.  Our furniture, my books, white paint.  The yellow chair way in the back is my sewing chair.  It's what I sit in when I applique and quilt.  The blue flowered one is the reading chair.  On the fireplace you can see two busts.  Those are our kids when our daughter was three and our son was one. My aunt made them.  I think I want to be buried with them (the busts, not the kids.)  See how open it looks without that spindle railing??  The spindles had to be there to protect people from falling into the sunken living room.  We have to have the floor refinished but that can wait till we decide what we want.

 I just saw on Pinterest last night the look above the bookshelves.  Layer pics instead of pounding them into the wall.  I think I like it.  It makes the bookshelves look even taller.  Doesn't it look brighter!

This chair with no legs is quite a conversation piece.  I put it in the corner next to the kids' picture books. That whole section and half of the next one is children's books. Calvin and Hobbes right nearby on the bottom shelf. Board books where Mikey can reach them on the bottom shelf. Remember the holiday books are in the bathroom closet and there is another pile of picture books in the second bedroom.  There are several boxes of vintage books that I don't have room for.  Don't worry. I'll think of something.

Phew!!