So… the living room. First it looked like this:
Then it looked like this:
Then it looked like this:
And now it looks like this:
Although the salmon-pink walls, orange-brown brick, and dark wood trim and paneling aren’t the long-term vision for this room (our ideas keep changing), it already feels much more like home. We imagine refinished brick, coffered ceilings, and refreshed paneling someday, but for now it’s comforting to have a real couch instead of a pile of non-sit-on-able furniture.
Oh, and we shared this picture on Instagram and Facebook recently—don’t you think salmon is Burger’s color? That chihuahua rocks the hue. Not that I’m biased or anything.
About our sectional shrinkage: our previous house had a massive 25-foot living room, so we owned an oversized sectional that was thirteen feet long and nearly as deep (for comparison, a typical sofa is about seven feet long). While some people love big rooms and big sofas, we missed the cozy den from our first house the most.
That den was warm and snug, and when we toured this new house the living room reminded us of it. It felt like fate—cousin rooms, if you will. Here’s a before shot of our first house’s den so you can compare.
Our Karlstad sectional from Ikea (Karl, for short) came in four modular pieces. For this room, keeping the sofa and the chaise and removing the loveseat and corner seat to shrink the footprint made the most sense.
We didn’t buy anything extra: we simply connected the exterior arm that used to sit on the end of the sectional to the sofa piece and removed the middle components. It took about fifteen minutes. The two removed pieces were stored in the unfinished storage room under a plastic drop cloth. We decided not to sell them—without the matching end pieces they’re hard to market, and they might be useful later if we reconfigure furniture for another room.
A couple of years ago we built the console that sits behind the sofa as three interlocking pieces. By leaving out the middle section it nearly fits the shortened sofa—there’s about a six-inch overhang on the fireplace side, but it works for now. We plan to trim it for a perfect fit.
After living with a large padded storage ottoman instead of a coffee table and a console that spans the sofa, we’ve realized that having both a console (for nighttime tea) and an ottoman (for hiding toys and for Clara to lounge on) is very practical for our family.
You may notice the second hole in the brick fireplace wall—originally used for firewood—now covered by a leaning frame. It used to feel like a dark void when viewed from the sofa. Since the fireplace is no longer functional (we’d love to install a gas insert in the future), covering that opening feels more visually comfortable, especially when watching intense TV moments.
On the other side of the room, we’ve kept the 80s wet bar doors closed for now. Someday we might expand the doorway into that area to open up the kitchen, but for the moment I enjoyed arranging items on the built-ins in the corner.
When moving chaos fills a house, I like to putter with books and little ceramic animals. The built-in corner went from messy on moving day to tidy within 24 hours, which felt like a small victory amid the larger chaos.
We also removed several doors on the first floor that had blocked sightlines and flow—the doors that separated the foyer from the kitchen and the kitchen from the living room. Now we can check on Clara from the kitchen while cooking, and the foyer opens onto the kitchen’s bay windows instead of two dark doors near the entry.
Removing the doors between the kitchen and the dining room has made the space feel breezier, even with the house’s dark blue trim, wood paneling, and multiple wallpapers—the place currently features at least five different wallpaper patterns. Wallpaper removal and testing techniques are high on my to-do list; I’m excited to try several methods and share which ones work best.
That’s where we are so far: small changes that make the living room more livable while we plan bigger updates down the road. Tiny wins add up, and it’s fun to see progress even amid the mess of moving.