Mansion Mission: Living Room is Now Livable

Welcome to the update in the mansion mission. I moved into this apartment in the back of a dusty, old, historic mansion a month ago now and boy oh boy do we love it! (well, we love it now that we've done so much work to it!) So please keep in mind, this is still a work in progress but I think we have some clever and affordable solutions that you can take away. 

The living room before we moved in (don't mind my brother)

The living room today

As you can see there has been a transformation. A fresh coat of paint form the ceiling on down to the fat baseboards made a huge difference for not a huge price tage...just a huge labor of love. But so worth it to have the all the amazing molding pop.  

Before

Now

So I still have these big walls with nothing on them. Painting helped for sure, but I needed more so that it didn't look empty. I wasn't about to go drop a bunch of money on huge art that I'm not in love with so the solution I came up with was THE LIGHTING. The two pendents are the clear stars of this room for so many reasons. one- what I was just explaining with the huge empty walls...the shadows that the light cast on the walls fills them up and gives life and energy to the space. Its also the perfect amount of mood lighting for our regular evening activities; TV, dinner, fire (yes it works!) for task lighting there are two wall sconses and I'm on the hunt for a table lamp. And the other reason these lights are perfect for the space is because they are very modern and offer an unexpected element in the historic room...the juxtaposition of the modern with the historic takes the space to a new level of chic and offers a freshness to the room design. 

These lights can be purchased at good ol' IKEA! There are two sizes (mine are the smaller option) and they only cost $100 for the pair! You seriously cant beat it. People that don't have a modern style are always scared to shop Ikea but as you can see, combining styles works. I don't want to necessary live in an ikea showroom either, but you can find home decor for such a great price and then you make it your own. In the photo above, you can see my modern lights in my historic home with my vintage chairs and my crate and barrel side table (and soon the windows will have sheers)... it works and it feels like home to me!

Making the Pit into my Palace

Before

Painted

Major wall and ceiling prep work. Thanks dad!

Filling in all the old nail holes 

Trim Work

The key to the success of the paint job in this room was knowing the secrets to trimming. Now I had my little blue tape out like a good girl, staring at the endless amounts of molding in the space, thinking "I will be doing this forever".  When my dad walked by and said, "umm no." and handed me his "good" paint brush. What makes a good paint brush you ask, well apparently it is an angled brush that is slightly firm and has no wild hairs on it.  

Hold your paint brush kind of like you would a pencil, but loose. With a steady hand dab the paint on the wall near, but not exactly ware you are trimming. Use that paint as your palet. Taking your time, you slowly cut in to the paint  with the point of your brush and drag it, gently working it into the straight line next to your molding. 

After we finished and were leaving, I thanked my dad for his help and teaching me how to trim and he said, "well you would have still been putting up blue tape if I hadn't!" (So True!) 

Its amazing how much better this dusty old room looks with a fresh coat of paint from top to bottom!