FINALLY!!!!!

We have been living with this room for three years almost to the day - since we moved in. This is what we were living in and had to work with:

When we bought our house three years ago, we knew that work needed to be done. Of course, there were things that had to be done right away (a roof is a good thing, etc.) so the inside basically sat for a few years. Right after we moved in, my husband and a friend drywalled over the brick fireplace and removed brick from the floor in front of the two windows. He then subfloored where he removed the bricks and there it sat for about three years. We called it "roughing it". We didn't have enough furniture to fill the room, so it looked pretty pathetic for all that time. Oh, and there was no carpeting on the floor - just painted subflooring.

Finally after three years (almost to the day) we have an end result (or almost the end):

There are pictures to be found and decorations, but I hesitated buying anything until I saw what the furniture would actually look like in the room. I'm so happy with it. This room was almost the death of me or the end of my marriage - I'm not sure what came the closest. My husband wanted Laz-y-boy!!! AUGHHHHH! We had that before - been there, done that. I'll admit that it is comfortable furniture, but it's so.....Laz-y-boy looking. I just couldn't take seeing another piece of reclining furniture in my (okay, our) family room. He actually ended up picking out the sofa and ottoman and as a concession to him, the chair in the foreground on the left is a reclining chair. I think that he's sat in it once - go figure. Also I saved an incredible amount of money on this furniture. A lot of calls to North Carolina did the trick. Once I got my prices from NC, I went to my local furniture store and dickered with them! Things are so economically bad, that they honored all the prices. Wasn't quite like shopping on a shoestring, but I did save a ton of cash!!!

While my husband was in an agreeable mood about ordering window treatments, I also convinced him that we needed some for the kitchen too. He wasn't smiling after he saw the pricetag (but then again, he usually doesn't smile much on a good day either - LOL), but they look so nice. The next project is the kitchen, but that will probably be on hold until next year or when the economy gets better (or until my cooktop dies and the refrigerator groans one last time. Oh yes, the dishwasher hasn't worked in two years, but I enjoy washing dishes three times a day (yeah, right!).

Over the sink.

Over the doorwall.