The Makeover Continues: Living Room

I documented how I started a small makeover of my living room by changing some pillows and a lamp last week. It’s amazing to me how such a small change:

1. Made me happy whenever I saw it.
2. Provided the impetus to continue making changes.

So last weekend I tackled the bookshelves on either side of the fireplace. A couple of months ago I decided I wanted to declutter these shelves, as it seemed like things had accumulated mysteriously on their own over the last few years.

Since there are lots of areas in our house that could have the same thing said about them, I don’t think it’s such a mystery, really.

Luckily, this urge to declutter coincided with Finer Things Clutter Challenge, so I got to check off numbers .36 to .72 on my way to loosing 365 things in my house this year. Actually, there were more things I got rid of, but since it was an embarrassingly large stack of magazines (old Do It Yourself’s- whoa late 1980s decor was really different), I just counted some of them. It seemed to go against the intent of challenge to have half of the clutter be magazines.

So here’s what the right shelf looked like before:

The book situation was really out of control, and those are mostly magazines on the bottom shelf.

Here’s the shelf after painting the back a light green and decluttering:

I think I like this. I’m not done, as you can see, and am looking for a basket to fit in the spot on the bottom shelf. The green will show up better when I repaint the shelves a creamier white.

There is a long story there that has to do with buying hundreds of dollars worth of paint to spray the house, spraying it and then finding out the paint store changed the colorway of the stock color we had used in our previous house. *sigh*

Now I’m slowing repainting all the trim. In the whole house. Did I mention slowly?

But I digress.

Here is the left shelf before:

Again, books out of control, though I had moved all our photo albums before the picture was taken (hence the empty spot), so you’re missing the view of the huge books overhanging the shelf by a good two inches.

Really, I don’t know what I was thinking.

Here it is after:

What is it about decluttering that seems to make you breath easier? It’s seems more soothing to look at, to me.

I’m still working on this, and am not really sure what I’m doing on the bottom shelf, but I know I want to add some more black elements. Maybe some cool bookends?

Any advice would be appreciated!

What do you think- better before or after?

-Jami

This is linked to DIY at A Soft Place to Land

Share and Enjoy