Before and Afterish: Family Room

I am so excited!  Our family room (in the lower level of the house) is finally usable!  I know that it has only been three months since we moved in so I really have no right to complain.  But when you can see the potential every day (and are tired of tripping over millions of toys every day) it seems like a long time.  It is so nice to be able to start organizing and putting everything in it's "proper" place.  Maybe now I can spend some of my cleaning energy actually cleaning, not just managing clutter!

Keep in mind that we are far from done - obviously still need baseboards and the trim around the windows needs to be painted - and there are lots of little things that need to be done!

Some before pictures from last May -

We tore the carpet out with the intention of putting in laminate wood flooring before we moved in.  But...we discovered a leak around the chimney.  That REALLY slowed things down.  The leak turned out to be an easy fix (it just took us a couple of months to figure out the source) - the downspout outside was pointing directly at the chimney, so every time it rained more than 1/4 in., water would leak in. 

We had lots of help from Curtis' dad - he helped paint everything and helped Curtis for a couple of days putting in the floor.  Lane liked to "help" whenever he could :)

Brent Lancaster, my brother-in-law, is a door and window installer and did a great job installing the new windows!

See the ugly old windows with lovely expandable foam holding it together? 

And the "after" photos!

It feels sooo bright, clean and airy now!  I love having a big family room like this - separate areas for tv-watching, playroom, and office.  It's so nice for all of us to hang out in the same room!  And since the stairway is kind of "open" the kids haven't minded playing downstairs while I'm upstairs.  They'll probably have more fun once I get things more organized and not just in a big pile!

I'm having a hard time deciding on accent colors and curtains.  I really like orange and turquoise these days, but I'm not sure if I will like them long enough to actually buy things in those colors!  Most of my old decorating pieces are red.  I don't like red anymore, so I've been spray painting alot of things :) Curtains - I think Roman shades would look nice - but do I want to attempt to make them or should I just try to find some I like?  Ahhh, decisions, decisions. 

I just got the Ikea catalog in the mail so I'm excited to start looking through that and hopefully getting some more ideas!

I told Curtis that now he doesn't have to do anything on the house until after harvest and field work are done.  He was happy.

We do have an extra loveseat...any one need one?  :)