Our Changing Home-Part 1

Recently, I was thumbing through old photos to run as a slide show during our daughter's graduation party. I have tons of pictures that have never made it into albums; photos taken long before I ever thought of writing a blog and long before I even knew there was a home decor/diy blog village out there! Looking at pictures taken of our home when we first moved in made me wonder "What were we thinking?!" Wanna step back in time with me?

For many years I have worked to make the limited wall space in the living room make sense.  When we purchased the home the room was hideous. (Probably the reason I found my mom crying the day we bought it.) The walls were covered in colonial looking wallpaper and cheap paneling for wainscoting.   The squeaky floor was adorned with a dirty indoor/outdoor carpet and under it was another layer of shag carpeting and under that .... some seriously messed up wood floors marred by bad patches where a fireplace used to sit.

Money was tight and cosmetic fixes would have to do. Fortunately, I have a very handy, hard working husband. We stripped the wallpaper, many layers, and repaired the crumbling horse-hair plaster and added crown molding.

Between this photo and the next two you can see about five layers of wallpaper. 

Normally, I like toile but....

I love color! A coat of paint in a flat finish took the attention away from wavy walls. To make them even less obvious I stenciled a damask pattern in a color one shade darker than the base coat. This is not an easy task and because I was trying to parent my three and five year olds at the same time so this project took days! All the walls were wonky: nothing is level and no corner is 90 degrees. I had to fudge that stencil all over the place! That left the room looking like this.

Pay no attention to the date stamps. I don't think I ever got them set right! This photo was taken in 2004 (maybe).

I was all about painting my trim (Mister did the actual painting) to match the decor of the room. 

The couch was my first attempt at making a slip cover. I found some canvas at Walmart for very little money. I got the main piece sewn and it was okay. I never got around to sewing the cushion covers and ended up wrapping an old matelasse cover over them.  The room looks so spacious!

At first, we left the wainscoting alone. As time progressed we painted the it this dark raspberry chocolate color. Looking back at photos now I cannot believe I ever thought I could live with that long term! It looks so dated to me now...well, sort of. There is a familiar homeyness to it for me.

Our living space was like this for about ten years but you know me...it didn't stay that way. I'm going to reminisce some more and I hope you come back to see more of the changes in Our Changing Home-Part 2.