Before & after: The den

This is an older post, but I wanted to link up to Rene's party, even though I'll be redecorating this room again within the next year.



So here we go!

Thanks to a little unexpected prize money I won for coming up with an innovative idea at work, we found ourselves able to invest in a new sofa this month. YEA! We'd been shopping for a sofa when I got pregnant with Jake in 2007, and we decided to hold off until he was past formula-feeding age. No point in getting a new sofa that would see lots of spit up within a few months, right?

And of COURSE if we were getting a new sofa, I had to come up with a new space plan for the den, which has seen no fewer than five furniture configurations in the 10 years we've lived in this house ... none of which have worked all that well. So my friend Jackie from church -- an interior design wizard -- came over with her measuring tape and common sense and worked her magic on a new space plan. Thanks, Jackie!

Helpful hint for people who are as stubborn as I am: If you buy a house and there is no cable outlet on the wall on which you'd most like to house your TV, bite the bullet before you move in and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD INSTALL A CABLE OUTLET ON THAT WALL. Do not, under any circumstances, decide that you can "live with it" on the wall the previous owners used, nor on the opposite wall, just because there happens to be an outlet there, as well. I DID BOTH OF THOSE THINGS IN THIS HOUSE, and I have regretted it. Until this month. I've finally wised up ... and it only took 10 years. (And I just typed "wized up," so clearly God's not done with me yet.)

SO, onto the pictures. (Sorry it took so long to get here, but I really wanted to share my cautionary tale for the betterment of the Internet.)

BEFORE (TV WALL)



AFTER (NOW, COUCH WALL)



BEFORE (COUCH WALL)



AFTER (NOW, TV WALL)


(I realize that my After shots are a lot wider than my Befores, but I was trying to give you a better sense of the room as a whole. I'm not sure it's working out that way. Now that I look at them, it's a little confusing. Apologies.)

BEFORE (VIEW TOWARD THE BACK OF THE ROOM)



AFTER (VIEW TOWARD THE BACK OF THE ROOM)



BEFORE (VIEW FROM THE KITCHEN INTO THE DEN)



AFTER (VIEW FROM THE KITCHEN INTO THE DEN)



BEFORE (THE CORNER WITH THE DESK AND THE CORNER WITH THE TOY BINS)




AFTER (NOW, THE CORNERS WITH THE TOY BINS AND DESK -- you can see that we just flip-flopped their positions)


And, if anyone is wondering, we used Glidden's "Pokerface" paint color in Benjamin Moore's actual paint ... sort of a taupe-y brown. It might sort of look like a cave to you in these pictures, or you may be thinking, "MY LANDS WOMAN. WHAT'S WITH ALL THE LAMPS?" I'm still trying to figure out the task lighting in here, because the lighting really worked better with the other space plan. HOWEVER, every single other thing about the room is an improvement, to me. I am SO happy with it, including the color. I think it minimizes the mauve tone of the carpet ... which we aren't replacing while we still have a cat. (Love you, Scoutie!)

In closing, YEA for finally getting up off my tush and doing what I should have done 10 years ago!