Sunday, January 24, 2010

Fun Monday-Favorite Room

Our lovely Fun Monday hostess this week is Jan, and she wants to see our favorite room in our house. Weeks ago I promised before and after pictures of the renovations to our new house, and I must confess that since then I've lacked the motivation to dig out all those photos and post them. Maybe one of these days I'll get around to it, but in the meantime, this post gives me the opportunity to show you at least one of the rooms.

While the kitchen is a close second because it's big and has lots of counter space and good glory in the mornin' a PANTRY, my favorite room is the living room. It is the center of our home and where we land when we're not bathing, eating or sleeping. When we realized a couple of years ago that we had outgrown our old house, we started making a list of things we wanted in a new house, and near the top of the list was space to entertain. We could entertain a large group of folks on the deck of the old house but had little room indoors. That limited our entertaining to months that are neither cold nor hot and humid. Basically, May, June, September and October. We certainly fixed that issue with the new home. We love the large living room.

We purposefully chose furniture that would maximize the seating capacity, like this table with pullout benches. How cool is that?
It was one of my favorite furniture purchases, and when we use those little benches and the ottoman, we can comfortably seat thirteen people in that room. If we drag in more chairs, we can hold more. I LOVE that.

That entertainment center was a splurge purchase for us. We scrimped in some other areas in order to buy that piece. Hubby and I fell in love with it when we saw it, and it hides the electronics so the room doesn't scream TV when you step inside. I hate it when the TV is the focal point of the room, and I didn't want the TV over the fireplace because it's uncomfortable to watch it that way even if it does look good in those pictures in House Beautiful. What I did put over the fireplace was a print that belonged to Sissy.

It was one of the few things we saved from her stuff. She bought it in St. Thomas on a vacation we took with her, and it gives her a presence in this house. It reminds me of the good times we had with her, and I love the colors in it. The vase on the left holds sand from a vacation in Destin, Florida (my, that caused a search of my bag in the airport) and shells from various trips we've taken to the Caribbean. We installed the fireplace as an alternate heat source during power outages. After last year's ice storm and eighteen day outage, we felt the need to better prepare ourselves for such things. We actually use the fireplace quite often and love it.

As you can tell, I still have a few empty shelves and corners to fill, but my interest in decorating went by the wayside after seventeen paint samples, four trips to the furniture store and and endless hours researching and shopping on the internet. I'll get around to filling those spots one of these days. In the meantime, we're just enjoying the space and feeling blessed that we have a house that truly fits our needs. Now, toddle on over to jan's and see what everyone else has to show us today.












12 comments:

Janis said...

Love the color of your LR...its so warm and inviting. You sure can fit a crowd in there...the coffee table with seating is so unique. May you have many happy memories in your new home Hula...thanks for playing and happy FM

Kelley with Amy's Angels said...

I am in LOVE with that entertainment center!

Living Life said...

Wowza! I love it! What a great room for entertaining! The coffee table is so cool. I have never seen anything like that! Your color scheme is perfect and it is arranged perfectly. So when's the next partay??

Sayre said...

I really like how cheery and simple your room is! Not cluttered up with too much stuff. My rooms all seem to wind up that way, not because it's planned, but because it just seems to happen.

karisma said...

Wow you did such a great job. Looks very welcoming and yes I do love the coffee table idea. Brilliant!

Faye said...

I share your appreciation for that tricky table. I have a pretty special coffee table that lifts to desk level, but no seating! Another thing I like about your decorations is that whatever you display has personal meaning. That's the difference between a home and a showcase house.

Hopefully we're going to make it through this winter without a repeat of last year's ice storm. I thought five days without power in Louisville was bad. You get the prize!

Mariposa said...

Wow! That is one nice LR! Love your taste of furniture too. :)

Gattina said...

I also would feel well in this place ! You really decorated it very nicely although it's big it looks so cosy !

Sandy said...

I also love the color of your living room. It is so very cozy looking - I can just see me curled up with a book in front of the fireplace!

Great job and a truly lovely room.

Jill said...

Love it! We need to maximize seating ourselves and hide the tv! we are thinking of an armoire (spelling?) as well as some 'hideable' seating for family gatherings, yet easy to vacuum around, ya know? for some reason my incorrect post was linked, but the new one is on the second link, now!

ChrisB said...

It must be wonderful to have a really large room for entertaining, and how cool is that table. I love it.

grace said...

that is beautiful and I am in love with the entertainment center too