{"id":1340,"date":"2008-08-15T11:07:00","date_gmt":"2008-08-15T09:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.breigh.com\/wordpress\/archives\/1340"},"modified":"2010-05-26T21:42:28","modified_gmt":"2010-05-26T19:42:28","slug":"new-living-room","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/archives\/1340","title":{"rendered":"New Living Room"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the last while we have been making some changes to our living room as we decided that it was time to retire our sofas and redecorate a bit.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s still a work in progress but I do have some photos.\u00a0\u00a0 I figure I\u2019ll do it the same as our dining room<\/a> and show how it\u2019s changed over the years.<\/p>\n

\"Livingroom<\/a><\/p>\n

This is what the living room looked like when we moved in 8 years ago.\u00a0\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t LOOK as bad as it actually was.\u00a0\u00a0 We had gotten the sofa and chairs from a 2nd hand shop for about 150 guilders and they were really not that nice.\u00a0\u00a0 All we had to put anything on was this massive Lundia<\/a> unit my husband had with him at collage, that he had since he was a child.\u00a0\u00a0 Now, Lundia is great quality but it just looked messy and bleh to me, I hated it.<\/p>\n

\"Livingroom<\/a><\/p>\n

In early 2002 we invested in some new sofas.\u00a0\u00a0 We got them on the cheap at a local shop called Leen Bakker<\/a> (kinda like K-Mart or Zellers-ish).\u00a0\u00a0 We got one even cheaper because it was a floor model and the color had faded on the back because of the store lighting.<\/p>\n

I also talked hubby into cutting down on the amount of Lundia and used it just for a TV stand.<\/p>\n

If only we\u2019d invested in a better camera at the time!\u00a0 That was taken with one of the first digital cameras we had.\u00a0 I think it was 1 megapixel.<\/p>\n

\"Livingroom<\/a><\/p>\n

By 2004 we had banished most of the Lundia out of the living room and invested in a new TV cabinet and matching end table (later a matching coffee table followed when I got sick of this one and the junk that accumulated on the lower shelf).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We also put some cheap carpet in, which was a very bad idea with 2 cats and a dog.\u00a0 After a few years, regardless of how much it was vacuumed, the carpet was stained and filthy.\u00a0\u00a0 It also molded to show the shape of the tiles below as we were new to the carpet thing and that put it in for us didn\u2019t advise us to put something under it.<\/p>\n

The pink trim on everything and the horrid pink zigzag border was driving me crazy at this point too.<\/p>\n

\"lroom1106c\"<\/a><\/p>\n

By 2006 our sofas were permanently covered.\u00a0\u00a0 The fabric was one of those rough woven kinds of fabrics that the hair stuck in and refused to come out, and I\u2019d washed the pillow covers so many times trying that they were starting to pill quite badly and were changing color.\u00a0 The carpet was also removed.<\/p>\n

The pink trim was gone by this point and the walls had been de-papered and repainted.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to see in these photos though.\u00a0 At this stage I was beginning to get really sick of the sofas (and the cats) and I hated the cheap, shiney, plastic vertical blinds we had in the window.\u00a0 If you even touched them they\u2019d break and fall off.<\/p>\n

We\u2019d also had a bigger flat screen TV that was given to us as a gift from my parents for x-mas the previous year.<\/p>\n

\"lroom2007\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The only time I would ever really be happy with our living room was at Christmas.\u00a0 Especially this past x-mas (2007) when we got a lovely new fireplace.\u00a0\u00a0 Even though I was still hating on the sofas (which look pretty good in the photo actually, but weren\u2019t so nice in person) and those blinds.\u00a0\u00a0 Everything looks better at Christmas though, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

So that brings us to present day, August 2008.\u00a0\u00a0 We\u2019ve since gotten rid of the sofas.\u00a0 We tried to sell them, tried to give them to a 2nd hand place and ended up giving them away to some random person.\u00a0\u00a0 Can you believe a 2nd hand shop turned down the sofas cuz of some minor cat scratching?!\u00a0\u00a0 Even the Salvation Army wouldn\u2019t come for them.\u00a0\u00a0 Seriously, how fussy can all these poor people be?\u00a0 Anyway, getting off track\u2026<\/p>\n

\"IMAG0013\"<\/a> We bought a new sofa from Ikea, which was one of their showroom models.\u00a0 It was in AWESOME shape, like new really, and we got over 200 euros off.\u00a0 We then bought a new chair and footstool to match.<\/p>\n

There was only one problem, once we got it all home, it just didn\u2019t fit with the other things we had in the house.<\/p>\n

The shape of the sofa was entirely different to what we had previously and when we got home our big coffee table just didn\u2019t fit it properly.\u00a0 Also, the sofa was much longer than the other ones we had, so it wasn\u2019t as easy to negotiate it into our living room as the other ones had been.<\/p>\n

We were also trying to create some more space in the house, which was starting to become crowded.\u00a0\u00a0 I guess this is natural after having lived here for 8 years and accumulating things, and I\u2019m sure my big turtle tanks don\u2019t help.<\/p>\n

This is when we decided to just change the living room completely.\u00a0 New furniture, new coffee table and a new plasma TV!\u00a0 We decided on the new TV so that it could be flat against a wall and we could take away the large TV cabinet.\u00a0\u00a0 It was really big and took up more space than we wanted our TV to take up now.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So we are retiring our wooden living room set into our storage room in case we want it in the future if we get a bigger house.<\/p>\n

This is what our living room looks like now\u2026<\/p>\n

\"plasma\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Our plama is currently sitting on our fireplace until we are 100% sure exactly where it will sit on that wall, then we will have it mounted.\u00a0 The DVD player will then go onto our fireplace and I can move that little wooden dresser (which is Xander\u2019s \u2018tool box\u2019).\u00a0 Our turtle hatchling tank fits in nicely as well.\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019ve not put up any thing on the walls yet, except the cross stitch that was already there.\u00a0 No point when we may be moving things slightly once the TV is mounted.<\/p>\n

\"New<\/a><\/p>\n

We put up new blinds which can keep the peeping eyes out from the old folks high rise across the road and new curtains to to match the dining room<\/a> and keep the sun out.\u00a0 Not that that\u2019s been needed much this summer.<\/p>\n

\"New<\/a><\/p>\n

So, overall we are pleased with how the room is coming along.\u00a0\u00a0 We\u2019ll probably change a few things here and there (like maybe some kind of little rug for under the coffee table) but otherwise this will do us for quite some time.<\/p>\n

\"New<\/a><\/p>\n

This is my favorite bit.\u00a0 The best part of the whole living room makeover.\u00a0 My little corner.<\/p>\n

A comfy chair with a place to put my feet up and work on my cross stitches or quilts.\u00a0 My laptop right next to me so I can keep track of whatever I\u2019m downloading, chat with friends and wait for my mom to come online while she\u2019s at work.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important I think, to have your own special place in your home where you are comfortable and can do the things you enjoy.\u00a0\u00a0 This is mine.<\/p>\n

My husband has one too, in our spare room with his huge table and all of his robot stuff<\/a> where he can be as messy as he wants!<\/p>\n

Ok that\u2019s a lie, I still harp on him to tidy it up every now and then.\u00a0\u00a0 I can\u2019t help it, it\u2019s the wife in me\u2026 it\u2019s like asking the wind not to blow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the last while we have been making some changes to our living room as we decided that it was time to retire our sofas and redecorate a bit.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s still a work in progress but I do have some photos.\u00a0\u00a0 I figure I\u2019ll do it the same as our dining room and show how …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,99],"class_list":["post-1340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-life-in-nl","tag-changes","tag-home-renovation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1340"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4847,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1340\/revisions\/4847"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}