Recession Style: Living Room "BEFORE"

Meet our new room! This brave homeowner has agreed to let me re-decorate her living room using primarily hand-me-downs, yard sale finds, and items bought off of Craig's List!

I invite you to follow along with us as we undertake this challenge, and of course, your comments, suggestions and questions are always welcome!

Things to Keep in Mind:

This room is the primary living space for our homeowner and her family. They have two small children and a couple of cats so everything we do will have to take into consideration their needs.

They would like the furnishings in this room to be comfortable, durable and made of a fabric that can be cleaned easily.

This is a long, skinny room with a fireplace on one end and a picture window on the other. This limits our options for sofa and television placement and the homeowner has expressed some frustration with this.

What's We're Keeping:

The homeowner likes the rug in the middle of the room and likes the colors in it, so we're going to take our color scheme from it. They also recently bought this television stand which she said is indicative of the style of furniture she and her husband like.

To save money, we're also going to keep the window treatments which came with the house.




Right now, the homeowner says she feels so-so about the window treatments, but we've decided to keep them because the color closely matches the green in her area rug; they were custom-made for the windows and are on a good scale for the room so we're going to keep them and divert that money to other parts of our budget.

AND, just to make it interesting and to prove that it can be done, we're keeping the husband's comfy TV-watching recliner. I know...I know! I'm a miracle-worker. What can I say? :o)

What We're Losing:

Pretty much the rest of the furniture. The homeowners are ready for something new!

Our Budget? $1,500

Style Goal? This homeowner knows what she likes and has told me her tastes lean toward the traditional. My goal is to give her a traditional room that is still comfortable and durable enough to meet the needs of her young family.

Well, that's it for now. It looks like I have my marching orders, my budget and my color scheme, so I'm heading out to do some shopping. Don't forget to check back and follow our progress!