That is what the girls call it, our “livling room” and I like it. It has a nice ring to it.

I also like decorating. But I work at a snail’s pace. If turtles are destined to be the ultimate winners in the race we call “life” then perhaps, there is hope for a person like me — who AGONIZES over every decision, tries to find a bargain and never can, takes months to hang a picture….etc, etc.

ANYWAY

I feel like our living room (or livling room) has finally reached a state where I can show it to you with the feeling that, although never “finished,” it at least feels complete.

BUT

before I do, will you pretend like you really care and take a walk with me down old memory lane, you know, just to see how far these four walls have come? It might even be fun?

Maybe.

Here is what the room looked like before it even belonged to us. (check out the poster of the monkey downing rum – that is something special!)

I don’t want to slam the other owner’s style. They took beautiful care of the house and they are really great people. But every room in the house was painted a different color (the bathroom was bubble gum pink, the nursery neon yellow, the entry way was black wallpaper…you get the idea)

It was just too much for us.

So when we moved in we painted everything in different shades of taupe (with a little blue green thrown in the mix). Call it boring or call it a reaction to the color overload.

Me, I likes me some flow in a house.

Okay, so here is the living room with our furniture from our Boston dwelling.

Eh.

It is much calmer, but not even CLOSE to being there.  This furniture looked so good in our other place, but here it just looked blah!

So,

fast-forward three and a half years

and

here

it

is

today….

(All the furniture is from Alice Lane – except the coffee table and the ottoman)

Now, if you will indulge me further let me show you some of the “details”.

Pillows: Zebra pillow, fabric from Alice Lane – but made by my sweet mommy)

This I bought from the Pottery Barn clearance section – originally it was white twill fabric. Suzanne at Alice Lane suggested this awesome Annie Selke fabric – and then my mom worked her fingers to the bone to re-cover it.

(My mom ROCKS!)

This tray deal I got at Thomas O’Brien’s shop in Soho. It was one of the only things I could afford.

Putting sconces on either side of the sofa was a genius idea from Suzanne – she showed me some knock out lamps that were $600.00 bucks a pop, but instead I went with these MUCH cheaper Pottery Barn alternatives.

The curtains were a labor of pure love from Liesa Card. Decorator (and wonderful human) extraordinaire. She spent hours with me figuring these suckers out. I love you, Liese! And I love these curtains. (with a shout out to the talented Julie in SLC who made them).

Ah, yes! This is an oldie but such a goody! This is what we lovingly call our “Ming Dynasty Throw”. Mom made this for us 7 years ago and it is still going strong. The girls refer to it as their “fluffy covers” and many a morning is spent snuggling under it while we watch Nick Jr. (so romantic!)

The Art in the room – still working on this, but you know, what we have put together so far makes me pretty happy.

This is a photo copy of a painting by an artist friend of ours named Elise Delong. Jan bought me the original for Valentine’s day a few years ago. But it is really small. It just got lost in the shuffle and so we took it to Staples, enlarged it, made this photo copy of it and framed it in this Pottery Barn frame. I think it looks pretty cool.

Here is the original.

Then, this summer we discovered an artist we just loved named Dave Hall. Who is a fly fisherman and a self taught painter. We just love his stuff so much!

This is the art on the floor. This rug makes my heart sing. And we couldn’t have gotten it save Adam and Jessica’s generosity at Alice Lane. They made practically zero commission off of it, just to take the price down to a more affordable place for us. It is the Thomas O’Brien “Julia” rug.

It takes a village to make a “livling” room, so they say. And I for one would like to thank everyone who has pitched in and made it possible.

And I’m especially grateful to the man of the house who paid for and put up with all of this. He was perfectly content with the original furniture. He is a good egg.

And just so that we keep this post grounded to the planet earth I wanted to show you what my bedroom desk currently looks like.

I bought this desk from a consignment store months ago with the intention of painting it and transforming it. But all I have done to date is buy two cans of little paint samples, and it has become what I call a “crap catcher”. You read enough of those DIY decorating blogs and you start to actually believe you CAN do it yourself.  Shocking, really.

The living room took three plus years so perhaps we should take bets on how long this desk will take me.

At the rate I’m going I am giving myself to 2012…at the very earliest!

P.S. “I am ashamed” you may have noticed that I have succumb to the “Karate-chop”