{ A New Look }

A couple of nights ago, I was lying in bed after a 3am feeding, drifting off to la-la land, when I started seeing images in my head of the furniture in our living and dining room, arranged differently. I thought something along the lines of This will help me fall asleep and promptly set about re-arranging our living space in my mind's eye. It was fun and it did help me fall asleep. This went on for a couple of nights, always as I was falling asleep in the wee hours--that sounds really weird now that I'm reading it typed out, but don't worry, I firmly believe it was the Holy Spirit. Yesterday I had a splitting headache all day and meant to take a nap when Lainie slept in the afternoon, but by now I was itching to move sofas, so instead I spent an hour shoving very heavy furniture around a very small area. After all, we are still planning on moving in the next few months, so I have limited time to play around with this home of ours...and for someone who reads multiple design blogs, I've done very little to change up our living spaces since we got this furniture. By the time I was done, I wasn't sure if I liked it, so I decided to take myself up on the offer of a nap and laid down. Fifteen minutes later, Elaina woke up, so the two of us tweaked things some more and eventually I was satisfied and...dare I even say it?...actually quite pleased. As the hours passed, I began to really like this new arrangement. Of course I didn't take before pictures. Maybe you remember what things looked like?

 

This is where the dining table used to be. I can't believe I'm posting these pictures...look at our crooked gallery wall! I drug both sofas into this spot, one after the other, to see which fit better. And then I had to push the {ridiculously heavy} sideboard down a foot so it wasn't covered up by the sofa.

 

The dining table switched spots with the sofa. It fits perfectly next to the fireplace. Here's the amazing thing: This arrangement makes our whole condo feel about three times bigger! Our living space is now one big open area, instead of being clearly separate dining and living areas. It feels so much bigger and more open. The only drawback is that the sofas aren't near each other, so if we have company and sit on the sofas we'll have to crane our necks and yell.

 

More tweaking is in order: the bookpage wreath needs to be moved up and over a bit, so it isn't running into the lamp on the table. And we definitely need to replace the torchiere that died a couple months ago. With no ceiling lights in the living room, it's quite dim. The twinkle lights are doing all they can, but they're just twinkle lights!

 

I was nervous about Mike's reaction, and he was quite startled when he walked in the door. After a few minutes, though, he proclaimed that he liked it...he liked it a lot.

 

Just for kicks, here's our Christmas tree. I love the wrapping paper I found at HomeGoods--lovely teal and silver Christmas trees and coral printed on white paper. And a Mason jar full of twinkle lights? Yes, please!

 

I probably won't have a chance to post again before Christmas, so Merry Christmas everyone!