Phase 1: Week 2--Intro and Pics

This week I'm decluttering my living/dining room area and my office. I had some time this afternoon and decided to go ahead and DO the living/dining room. I decided to do it because it was easy LOL!


I really love my diningand living arrangement. The place that should be my dining room is very tiny. My dining chairs are very big. I've been struggling with the lack of room for the entire 9 years we've lived in this house.


About two months ago, I decided to do something drastic: I switched the dining and living areas. I moved my large camelback couch into the dining area and put the coffee table in front of it. We now call that the "seating area." To the right is the sliding glass door that leads to the porch.

You can see the corner of the kitchen counter ("L" bar) which means when you're sitting on the couch you can look out through the slider or look into the kitchen and talk to whomever is working in there. When I get to the "beautify" phase, I'm going to recover the couch, remove the wallcovering and paint.

The dining table and three of the chairs I centered at the front windows. If you look hard you can see the snowstorm we're currently experiencing! You can see in this picture (right bottom corner) the seat of one of the wing-backed chairs that I moved over to the right of the table.

I grouped the two wing-backs into a little nook of their own. that plus the dining table being in front of the window reminded of a "club room" at an old-fashioned men's club. If Hubby smoked pipes I could put them on that round table! (You can see the dining chair at the left and see the armoir and stairs in the mirror.)

The walls in this room have been prepped to be painted (hence all the patching). I just haven't decided on a color yet.


In the corner opposite the chairs and under the stairs (Dr. Seuss flashback), is one of my favorite pieces of furniture. This armoir was in my husband's bedroom when he was growing up. My MIL had a chance to buy furniture from a factory when they lived in NC. Here it is closed:

And then open to show the results of my decluttering this afternoon! I use the armoir to hold craft supplies for our homeschooling.

Since I completed the first area, I will now be able to tackle my very, scary office. Here's just the corner where my computer lives. I won't show you the rest. I don't want to give anyone nightmares...