the living room switcheroo

I haven't been wild about the way our living room was working for a while now... I think it started with getting white cabinets in the kitchen and feeling like our off white stuff in the living room just looked dirty next to it. But whatever. We don't have the time or money to replace any of it yet... well, actually, the couch is the most comfortable thing in the entire world so I'd never want to replace it... maybe just get a slipcover in white or a gray linen or twill (picture Restoration Hardware's upholstery). While we were at the beach the other day I had a thought... maybe part of the reason I wasn't wild about the living room was because it seemed cluttered and closed off. So, here is the work of yesterday morning while Drew zoomed around the kitchen and living room in his car....

Before I just changed everything around it looked like this:

And here is the more open change:

And yes, that is a little big baby staring at you from the couch. :)

As I type this AJ is running up and down the stairs to the basement trying to switch where the cable wire will come in. Currently it's coming up through the floor behind the couch (our TV is behind the large framed old newspaper) and we are going to move it so that we can hang the TV above the mantle. Have you ever seen those picture hooks that will hang something about six inches away from the wall? Well, we want to get something like that so we can have a piece of art covering the TV, sort of like the effect of the newspaper art leaning against the TV now.

On the wall where the green desk and the black cabinet lives we generally have tons of baby toys, baby cars, baby seats lined up. UGG. I hate that clutter. In my dream living room I would have built in cabinets there to hide all of Drew's paraphernalia... sort of like a little garage for him to park his baby car in. Now, I just need to win a contest for a living room makeover and maybe that can happen. :)

Oh, and before you stop reading... let me share with you two adorable photos of Drew that I took last night when we went out for my Mom's birthday: