Living Room Mini-Makeover

I don't know how it affects your household but clutter grows like kudzu around my home! Our living room was getting a little out of control lately. Heck, the entire house was getting out of control and in need of a major cleaning, especially after my Memorial Day weekend 'o projects.

I am my mother's daughter and if you know my mother you'll know that means I need to reorganize, move furniture or redecorate every couple months. The last time our living room got a major overhaul was about 9 months ago after the wedding, so it was getting to be about time again. I decided to do a little mini-makeover on it.

Here are the before & afters:

(click on photos to view larger)

I bought these furniture covers for our couch over the winter, not so much to protect the couch from my husband and cat (though that is needed as well) but more to protect my eyes from the couch. I love the size and layout of it, as well as the color, but this couch came with the husband and lived a life of bachelorhood B.T. (before Tracy) that resulted in a few battle wounds (beer stains, patches that became victim to my cat's former claws, a few tears... the usual).

I love the covers, but they are just two standard size couch covers I'm trying to pretend want to be a sectional sofa cover. They don't stay in place very well but I'm testing out a Velcro remedy that I'll report back on (if it works).

 

Here's a little sneak peak at my two newest additions to the hodge-podge family: my new blue sewing chest & my very own school desk! (Posts to follow) We HAVE to figure out a way to cover that awful air conditioner!

Just a little tidier, just a little more organized. Just a little more "the room is clean now so you better not junk it up!"

Can you spy with your little eyes the two projects I came up with to use up some of the burlap left over from our wedding reception? (Don't worry, posts will follow on those as well!)

This is the tiered organizers new home. This sofa table is right in front of our front door so it tends to be the landing place for anything in my hands when I get home. I figured I better put a few catch-all containers on it. 

We call this the cat cave. I think it's the coolest! I bought it at Bed, Bath & Beyond. It's meant to hide a litter box, say for an apartment or small living space, but we use it to hide the cat's furry bed.

You can see here the final home for my bottle bowl. I'm still not 100% set on the other items on the desk but this will work for now... at least until I get the urge to redecorate again.

I like to call our home decor theme "stuff we like." I remember once being asked what the theme of our Christmas tree was. Uhhh... "theme"? The theme is "ornaments we have," that's our theme! Just about everything we use to "decorate" our home has some special or sentimental history.

 

And lastly, I had to share our new bouncy ball jar. The cat is especially pleased with this addition!

Who else gets the urge every once in awhile to mix things up a bit?