What's in that carpet?

I've been meaning to do this post for a while now. Our living room is starting to come together. We have most of the actual renovation done and what's left is the decorating and a few other tidbits! I still have more caulking and painting on the trim, and we are planning on building a built in bookshelf/cabinet to the right of the fireplace, but that will be later on.

I got these chairs last week and I'm super excited about them. They are navy with a burlap backing and distressed legs. They can be found online here at Pier One. They are nice chairs, not great quality but good enough for now. With 3 little boys, I am not wanting to buy really expensive furniture at this point. (The color of the carpet is a little off in this picture).

I just need to get some end tables, coffee table, lamps, etc. and will likely put some roman shades up as well on the windows. We have such a nice view that I don't want to cover the windows up with big drapes.

Here's one more before picture:

Now before I show you the after pictures, let me just tell you what we've done in this room. We started off by scraping the popcorn ceilings, which we actually did last summer in nearly the whole upstairs. Then we had someone come in and texture them. We painted the ceilings and the walls Dorian Gray by Sherwin Williams. However, because we have no Sherwin Williams stores here, I had our local Ace Hardware do a match and used Valspar Optimus paint. This paint is AMAZING! Our walls are quite textured and I only had to do one coat with some touch ups. It is so thick, it's like painting pudding on your walls! It is expensive but worth it since I didn't have to do two coats.

I painted this room and ceiling while being about 7 months pregnant. It was a little nerve racking, to say the least, standing on the 4th rung of the ladder with my then, 5 year old and 2 year old running around me. Trying to remain calm while they were jumping off the stairs I would tell them, "Don't run into the ladder or mommy will fall"! Probably not a very good "safety first" example.           

So as I was painting the wall over that middle window, I looked down and saw something on the ground. At first, I thought it was some pasta that our dog had eaten and threw up, but the closer I looked, I realized that wasn't what it was at all. "Jonas"! I yelled. "Get in here and look at this!" It was a FUNGUS! Growing through the orange carpet in my living room! AHHH! Oh. My. Word. So gross! At this point we decided we had to get our windows changed out, so I called my Uncle over and he got everything ordered for us. Apparently, the condensation from the window had been building up for so many years that it was the perfect environment for fungi to grow. My Uncle was able to get the new windows in and now we have nice, new windows and no more fungi!

Next we had the carpet installed by someone local and Jonas put up the chandelier. The carpet is Taza Tuftex in Windsor Gray by Shaw, you can find more details here.
The fireplace was painted twice since the first coat of paint didn't match the carpet, and then we put the trim up. You can read about those projects here and here.

So here's the progress so far. We are currently using this room for some of the toys since Jonas took over the space in the family room for the workout equipment. Just until the basement is done.

With the sun streaming in

The sofa's are from Joss and Main and so is the chandelier. If you haven't discovered Joss and Main yet, it's a flash sale site that is super awesome! Even though it's a flash sale site, you can still return almost everything. They have great stuff and great prices! But watch out, you might get addicted! Now off to the cabin for a long weekend!