progress

 We are making progress, little by little, in the living room/dining room. Against all of our DIY instincts, Will and I have both been trying (very) hard not to tackle too many projects at once, and instead have been focusing on just a few. Outside we are stacking wood and thinning trees (and general upkeep) Inside we are working on this room. It's hard. Especially for me. I want to rip up ALL the carpet and paint the bathroom and rip out the tub and do SOMETHING with the reading nook and lay flooring in Briton's room and put in a farm sink and paint the cabinets and so many things ALL AT ONCE. But I'm being good (mostly, I might have one extra painting project on the side).

The living room/dining room has been the most challanging room for us, style wise. Which is why we are tackling it first. That and it's one of the first things you see when you come in and is the room we spend the most time in. It is so vastly different from any living room or dining room we've ever had. For the  most part, Will and I have always lived in old homes with small, square rooms that thrive on symmatry. We have lots of dark wood and compact furniture that fits perfectly in bungalow and cape spaces but which look odd in a large, open room. Especially one with a curved wall. It's not that I don't like the space. I really do. It's open and spacious and I still can't stop gazing out the window at the view into the woods. It's just different.

It also doesn't have any specific style of it's own. Its not farmhouse or mid century modern or loft or bungalow. Or maybe it's a little bit of everything with a lot of knotty pine thrown into the mix. So we are rolling with that. The mix look. Minus most of the knotty pine. And we've been taking a lot of hints from Swedish design because they know life with snow and short winter days, which means there is a lot of white.

We are not remotely done. There are still a few panels of ceiling to paint. And yes, that is patched plywood on the floor. The carpet had to go. We couldn't wait. Eventually (soon!) that will get painted and sanded as a temporary/somewhat permanent fix until we can put in radiant heat and new flooring way down the road. Right now it looks like it had a bad case of the chicken pox and is covered in calamine lotion. And the big wall, the curved wall, at some point that will have wallpaper instead of just the big panel of Orla Kiely print. If we can find a print we like. Which is proving harder than we thought. So there is still much to do. But it is better. Closer. And so much brighter. We still debate about the trim. Some days we like the wood with white look, some days we aren't so sure. It sort of walks the line between cool and dated. But painting all that trim.... I don't think I'm up for that, at least not at the moment.

Now we just have to choose a floor paint. I'd love to go with dark grey but I think it will show dirt too much. So maybe lighter grey. Or maybe I'll just mop a lot.