The lounge room

Because I have been so absent for the last week I have heaps to catch up on!

1. I have to tell you about two wonderful dinner parties I have been to in the last month with the wonderful women I work with;  
2. I have to tell you about my new Follower (so excited!) and
3. I have to show you my new curtains that I have been slaving away on for 2 weeks, and which are so so close to getting hung! 

But in the mean time I finally have some 'after' photos of our living room with new paint colour and new carpet!

So this is what the lounge room looked like when we brought the place (there are more photos of the rest of the house here if you are interested):

My favorite parts of this room were clearly: the truly filthy mustard brown carpet; the salmon coloured walls and the very dirty brown brick fireplace.  Really, is it any wonder that so many people could not see past all of this to see what could be a beautiful room?

So to begin with we painted the room in Taubmans Martini - this is the same colour that we used in my Office, however as the light is so different in each room (the office doesn't get direct sun into it), the two rooms look completely different. 

The biggest deal in renovating this room was the sliding lead-light doors.  They were secured to the wall with a massive wooden pelmet and about 100 screws and nails - the previous people were clearly worried about them not being secure! Taking down these doors and all the sliding paraphernalia was a 2 day job in itself, reinstating the wall and the doorway back to what it should have been, was a 7 day job!!

Taking down the sliding door paraphernalia ......

Putting the door and wall back together (we pulled the corner pieces off some doors at the back that are coming out in the renovation - its robbing Peter to pay Paul around here!):

By far the most debated item in the room was: the fire place.  We couldn't keep the bricks the way they were but what to do? There were discussions about lime-washing them, tiling them, spray-painting them; but in the end we decided that we should paint it the same colour as the wall and live with it for awhile before making any major decisions. 

The fireplace itself is actually very unique.  As you can see from these photos it is a bright blue and black marble effect on the metal: 

At first, the conciseness was that we should just 'pot black' (paint it black) the blue and black and keep the brass detailing. However as I cleaned off decades of soot and dirt and spiderwebs it started to grow on me. Making promises to the wonderful J that if he still didn't like it in a month we would go ahead and paint it - we kept the bright blue and black marble effect   So far we haven't had a single conversation about changing it - so I have my fingers crossed!!

And this is what it looked like the night before the carpet men were coming:

I should probably mention that I personally would not carpet a living area - the reason this room is being carpeted is that after the whole renovation is complete this room will turn into a bedroom. 

And after the carpet men had left:

I would love to be able to show you it all dressed and looking lovely just like everyone else seems to be able to do in blog land - but alas I can not!

The only pieces of furniture that are actually staying in our house after the whole renovation is completed are a few side tables that I have found and loved enough to buy now.  Everything else: the couch, the chairs, the Ikea coffee table; are all going to make way for furniture the wonderful J and I actually chose ourselves! 

I will however pop back and show you photos of the curtains I have been slaving over for this room (if they ever get hung!!).