Remember when I told you all that my good friend Erin was going to give my living room a make over? No? Ok, well it has been awhile, so go get caught up and then read on.

All caught up now? Yay! Here’s my living room, beautifully toy free and all dolled up as only Erin can do. I don’t have my own photos of this because I was busy keeping the kids out of the beautiful room while it was being filmed! Though look closely, you’ll see a little half naked Jossy stroll into the scene with daddy.

Ahhhhhh, that video is my happy place. So pretty, quiet and serene. Don’t get me wrong, the room is still looking great without Erin’s daily primping, but the designers Fisher Price and Melissa & Doug have been a huge influence in adding to the decor these days. Even with all the primary colored toys sprinkled through out the room, we still love it and even just switching up the layout of the room was life changing. We used to just have the furniture all pushed against the walls so the kids could have an open spot to play in the center of the room. It’s really nice to be able to sit on the couch like an adult and watch them play at the same time.

The Chairs: I had two Ethan Allen chairs that I had purchased about ten years ago that I LOVED, but the red fabric was so blah and we just couldn’t work around it. So we picked a great Dwell Studio Fabric and I had the chairs recovered locally. Meanwhile, I found some pretty yellow Dwell Studio for Target dinner napkins and made pillows out of them. (They were the PERFECT size to recover existing Ethan Allen pillows I had. Score!) I also made pillows out of some spare chair fabric. Thankfully, my ten year old cream colored couch is still holding up beautifully and it has found new life in this new color scheme.

Here’s the dinner napkins I made the pillows out of. (Target, you are the BEST!)

The filming of the make over was before the days of the yellow piano, but trust me, it fits in perfectly!

By the time that video was filmed, I had already cleaned two or three chocolate stains off those grey patterned chairs from Jocelyn’s birthday party and it came completely out with just water. I have found when you invest in quality fabric on furniture (i.e. my cream colored couch) they tend to clean up pretty well. I have also learned that when you buy a dark fabric, like the previous red fabric, it fades over time and doesn’t age well. (I tried for years to keep up with closing the shades so the setting sun wouldn’t fade them, but dude, I have a life.) Dark fabric shows pug hair too. So yay to getting rid of the old, dark and faded fabric!

My winter project is to get some art and prints on the wall. I want to go REALLY big, with large black and white prints of just everyday candid photographs of my family on the wall. I’m thinking white frames and white mattes to keep things bright and to focus on the prints. We’ll see. That’s for the winter months when my head clears a bit.

Another project I have is to re-cover an old faded navy blue ottoman from that original Ethan Allen set. I’m thinking I can give it a try myself, but that’s a whole other blog post. One project leads to the next, that’s for sure. Needless to say, this make over really inspired me freshen things up.

Here’s an iphone pic of how the room looks on a normal day around here. The bookshelf is always crammed full of books, toys and whatever, so that’s one of the biggest changes that naturally occurred when we took the room back after Erin’s make over. Our yellow piano is a more subdued yellow than it appears in this photo too.

Oh and something I’ve recently added to the room was this dresser full of craft supplies. I have it stocked full of stickers, paper, crayons, work books and other supplies so the kids can help themselves. (No markers or paint of course!) This gives you a better sampling of the light grey on the large, tall walls. In other photos, it can look warmer.

A HUGE thank you, thank you, thank you to the oh so talented Erin for making our space so beautiful and so “Us.” Without Erin, I would have never had the courage to do a dark grey on the walls or think of the layout or all the accents. It feels like our house finally matches our personality.

Local Resource Note: Northern Indiana readers, if you need a great painter, Duane of AK Painting did fantastic work and as a bonus, he’s also a super nice guy.