Before and After: The Living Room Reveal

I’ve been waiting to do these before and after reveals for so long, and now I can announce the living room reveal!

I wanted to get all the rooms straight and tidy before I posted any pictures. The living room was the second biggest job in the house.

Before

This was the photo taken for the estate agent’s website. As you can see, the carpet was dated, and was worn thin in a lot of place. They had so much furniture crammed into the room that it made it feel very small. That sofa, which doesn’t look too big, was huge. And they had that armchair in the corner blocking the majority of the doorway into the dining room.

As you can see, the estate agent’s made the room look a lot bigger. Sorry for the awful picture quality too. At the time of buying the house, I hadn’t thought I’d be starting up a blog and might need good pictures!

I still can’t get over those French doors. They are meant for an external wall, but had been put inside and were frosted glass.

Yep. frosted glass French doors inside a house.

There were wall lights literally everywhere you looked, and furniture crammed into every corner. Notice the huge hi-fi in the corner. To the left of the armchair closest to the camera was a huge grandfather clock, and behind that, a huge sideboard/cabinet.

 

The Living Room Reveal: After

We removed (pretty quickly) those ugly French doors and decided to leave downstairs open plan. We did consider glass bi-folding doors, to shut the living room off at night, but decided against.

As you can see, we haven’t bought a proper ceiling light yet.

There’s still so much to do to this room. I want a large oak beam to sit as a mantle piece, and then some artwork on the chimney breast.

I would like shelves above the armchair for books and photo frames.

The room is flooded with light all day, and is so lovely to sit in.

You can read all about our completely free fireplace. I absolutely love this little section of the room. Eventually my mantlepiece clock will have an actual mantle to sit on.

This is the view from the kitchen diner into the living room. Our curtains are temporary! They’re stuck up with masking tape for the time being. Until we can afford some made-to-measure curtains. I have my eye on some from Laura Ashley.

I think my little reading chair is my favourite corner of the room.

So there’s my big living room reveal. Seeing the changes laid out like that make me realise how hard we’ve worked to reach this stage.