me vs. the living room, round i

happy wednesday all!  it's been a rough week here on irving street, i'm not gonna lie.  the week starting with the passing of my beloved puppy, serendipity.  it is a long and painful story and i'm having a hard enough time shaking off this depression as it is so i won't re-live the story here.  but she was far too young to go away and it was my first experience putting down a pet... so needless to say i am heartbroken.

me & serendipity, circa august 2006

but in an effort to get out of this funk i am going to share some new living room developments!  also, i am jetting off this weekend to tennessee to see my girl anne who i've mentioned before.  she's kind of amazing and i have no intentions of posting this weekend.  so, knowing how sad you all get when i don't post for a weekend (humor me) i will update you today.

as i wrote on osama's death day, i kind of am hating my living room right now.  of course i went on to post about the dining room, but even after planning what photography to hate i was left... hating my living room.  now that it's springtime here in colorado (now that it's may and we have our sprinklers on i think it's finally safe to say that) we don't need to use our radiator anymore.  so we thought we would cover it up with... another couch!  that's what we were really missing -- more seating.  with the day sofa we moved into the living room, we also needed to move the television.  moving a wall shelf from the den, we finally found the perfect place for our television -- on the wall, off of the furniture.  here the new (well, relocated) couch and the television in it's new spot.

relocated from the sunroom, our day sofa looks
perfect in front of the big window & blue curtains

tv's new spot, on the wall, out of the way and
(finally!) out of focus

pillows in the above photos are, of course, courtesy of bianca over at the martino nest on etsy.  her pillows are adorable, comfortable and can be personalized!  anyway of course... i couldn't stop there with the living room.  i did some more rearranging, bringing my reupholstered antique chair out from hiding and moving my favorite tea table to the other side of the living room.

my favorite chair - and it was free! 

one of my favorite pieces

don't know if i've ever shared my couch but here it is!

and now with the television out of the way, i have our old cabinet the television sat on in a new place serving a new purpose.  

dvds inside - love the little window!

stacking books of the same hue to bring color into a room is one of the
first - & easiest! - decorating tricks i ever learned

so i hate the living room a little less now.  there is, as always, so much more work to be done.  but i'm definitely satisfied for now having brought in more color and more furniture.  the mantle is still leaving something to be desired, as is the entry way.

boring mantle - needs some flavor besides earth tones!

that red needs to go...

...but in the meantime i used my book-stacking trick again to make do.

i think that's all that is new around here folks.  and in the spirit of the royal wedding i would ask that you all address me as, "the duchess of irving."  kidding :)

see y'all after tennessee! 

(i soooo can't pull that off...)

xoxo