It's Great To Be Home

Meet My Secretary

February 4, 2011 By Liz - It's Great To Be Home 33 Comments

Do you spy anything new in our den?

Well, it’s not really new, just new to me. We are now the proud owners of my grandmother’s secretary desk!!

Isn’t it beautiful? I especially love the curvy drawer fronts.

This piece has lived in my parents’ house for a long time, and I nabbed it a few years back when my parents let us kiddos pick a few of our favorite pieces. I didn’t think that we had room for it so it’s been in my mom’s living room ever since, but after Christmas I realized that we actually have the perfect place for it!

( I don’t think I have any pictures of it, but we used to have an oversized armchair there, along with a side table. It kind of looked how it did in this post, except the sofa and armchair had switched places. Not sure if that makes sense. )

I still need to find the perfect chair to go with it (right now we’re just using a spare from our dining room). Any ideas?

In addition to all the sentimental value that goes along with this secretary, it’s also ridiculously useful. See?

I’m really digging all of the storage – I hadn’t realized it but we didn’t have a single drawer or cabinet to stash stuff in our entire living room. A travesty!

Look, lots of cubbies!! It’s perfect for stashing all of my stationary and thank you notes, magazines and books, my laptop, and the cozy blanket I crocheted for Jason back in law school (FYI, it’s the snuggliest blanket EVER).

As an added bonus, the top of the secretary is the perfect spot for a few of my favorite things.

Made any new additions to your home lately?

P.S. I’m linking this post up to Samantha’s Friday blog party.

The Flip: The Great Room, Then & Now

January 4, 2011 By Liz - It's Great To Be Home 80 Comments

We did it!! We reached the finish line and our old pal the flip is now on the market and FOR SALE!! Cue the confetti and streamers. :)

Now that every inch of the flip has been fluffed and puffed beyond all measure, I think it’s high time to see how far it’s come over the past 3 months!

Without a doubt, the great room underwent the biggest transformation. It was a gigantic undertaking to figure out how to combine four different rooms (den, kitchen, breakfast room & enclosed patio), get the vaulted ceiling figured out, fix the flow of the kitchen, and a billion other things.

Here’s how the great room looks now:

And here’s a reminder of how these four rooms (that we combined) looked when we bought the house on September 29, 2010:

What do you think?

This room gave us the most headaches during the renovation, just trying to figure out how to make the most of this gigantic space, but in the end I think it’s the room that most buyers will fall in love with.

Maybe I’m being sentimental, but I can just imagine an entire family hanging out in this room, kids doing homework at the kitchen table while the dad reads his newspaper at the peninsula and the mom whips up something tasty for dinner. Can you see it?

Okay, now it’s time for a bunch of gratuitous great room shots. I got a little camera happy. Hope you don’t mind. :)

Whew, enough pictures – I’m ready to hear what you guys think!

Confetti image via Flickr.

Can I Live in this Room?

September 28, 2010 By Liz - It's Great To Be Home 7 Comments

I’ve been drooling ever since I came across these images of designer Beth Keim’s living room in the fall issue of Southern Flourish:

This room just sings to me – bold pops of color offset by loads of cream and white are kind of my thing. But what really gets me about this space is the walls – the blue is both bold and soothing at the same time, and I think it’s the perfect, yet unexpected, compliment to the vibrant colors in the room. Without those walls, nothing else would really shine.

In between my bouts of lust, I’ve realized that I could probably create something similar with the decor that I already own.

Bold pillows? Check. Neutral-ish sofas? Check. Tall gourd lamps? Check – the turquoise ones from the dining room (maybe I could stack some books under them for extra height). Cream and brown area rug? Check – several options like the existing one in the den, or the zebra rug from the dining room.

I would need a new coffee table (I talked about painting it here, that could still happen, or I have another as-yet-unveiled plan for it), and I love the white, sculptural floor lamp so I would want to add one of those. The biggest problem? Our paneled walls. I just don’t think I could paint them a vibrant blue without looking crazy. But maybe it would work someday when we move to another house? Not that I’m dying to move, but there are too many fun design ideas to stay in one house forever, right? :)

Maybe it’s the change of seasons that’s making me want to switch things up a bit. What about you, do you have the itch to mix up the decor in your home?

Meet My Secretary

The Flip: The Great Room, Then & Now

Can I Live in this Room?

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