Problem #1: Our house looks identical to every other house in our neighborhood. Literally. Don't believe me? See for yourself.
Our House
Neighbor Across the Street
Neighbors Next Door
Problem #2: We put all of our money into getting the most house for our buck, leaving us cash strapped.
So the challenge has become how to add character to our house without emptying our already depleting bank account. With a little creativity and a lot of hard work, I think that we can do it, and I'm so excited to show you our progress along the way!
So that brings me to the couch. When my husband and I initially moved into our first house, I made the cardinal mistake when furniture shopping. "Oh, honey, why do you pick whatever furniture you want for your man cave?" At the time, it seemed the best of both worlds. Make the new husband happy because I'm "compromising" on a piece that will be stuck in the basement never to be seen again.
So this is what he chose (please excuse the icky iPhone pictures).
Not bad, especially for a basement. So I quickly agreed and then resumed choosing furniture for the rest of the house with no input from him. What? Did I not mention that I let him choose whatever he wanted for the basement??? That puts me in the running for wife of the year, in my humble opinion.
A few weeks later, the blue couch was pushed into the basement, a coat of blue/gray paint was slapped on the walls, and the husband was thrilled.
And then we moved. And found out that my beautiful, neutral colored sectional was the only coach that would fit down the narrow staircase into the new house's basement (after two hours of work taking the the frame off of the bottom and scraping every wall on the way down - not to mention almost losing a friend who was almost crushed between the couch and the wall). That left me with the blue couches. Oh, did I forget to mention that there were two? Yay for me!
So you might be asking, "What is she complaining about? I have an 80's style couch that I cannot get rid of. I'd gladly take that blue couch!" And I would agree with you. However, I have come to find that the only color that works on the wall when you have a blue couch is white and gray. Now I love gray walls. Sa-woon over gray walls. They're gorgeous. But I wanted something brighter than gray for our living room. We're young, we're fresh, we're not gray yet!
Being that we had NO money to throw out a perfectly good couch just to buy a new, neutral colored couch (okay, I admit that I mentioned that idea but it was quickly squashed by the husband), I had to figure out how to make these big blue couches work.
And then one day it hit me. What if I could add white on the bottom of the walls to coordinate with the blue couch and then put a brighter, more fun color above it? Then I don't have to worry about the bright color and the blue clashing AND I still get my young, fresh living room! And I introduce you to my decorating mistress - board and batton! I will blog more about how to install the board and batton in a later post, but here's the finished product. Please ignore the blue pillows - those came with the couch, and as I said, we just moved in so I just found the cord to my sewing machine.
I came home with my gallon of Wythe Blue and started painting. And let me tell you, the color on your computer and the actual paint color DO NOT MATCH. So I panicked at first - internally of course while telling my husband this is EXACTLY what I wanted! So he kept painting. And by the end, I was in love!
And this is how the blue couch looks with board and batton in white and Wythe Blue!
We can all collectively sigh now. Just me? Oh, well then, *sigh*.
So it's a work in progress, but I'm already in love with this room. I still have a lot of accessorizing to do, and I need curtains and pillows, but it's a start!
