Decorating run-down ...

Redecorating has been a main topic in our home lately.

I want to redecorate - paint, new furniture, new layout, etc ...

Our living room is relatively small and more of a rectangle shape than a square.

The actual 'living' space of the room is 13.5 x 11.5 (length /width).

I really don't count the rest of the living room (another 4 feet in length) because that's more of a walkway between the front door and the doorway opening into the kitchen. It's open into the living room, no walls or anything, but still not really a useable space for furniture outside of maybe a small table and wall decorations.

My goal is to keep the cozy feel while adding some sophistication and color to it, without making it seem smaller than it already is.

Here are my thoughts, so far ... (with lots of internet searching since I'm completely decorating impaired)

* Rearrange the furniture we currently have (temp fix).

We have two couches (completely mismatched) - one is a bit longer and deeper than the other. I thought I'd like the arrangement we currently have, but I don't. One couch has its back to that 'walkway' with the other against the outside windows (only windows in the room). I'm going to move them around a wall, leaving that walkway open again and adding visual room to the room.

* Move the TV and get rid of most of the entertainment center.

Right now, we have a black, WalMart entertainment center with side shelves housing our 37' flat screen tv. I want to move it around one wall and mount the tv onto the wall itself. Then dismantle most of the entertainment center, leaving only the bottom part with the drawers and shelves for the dvd player & satellite box. With the tv on the wall, that'll leave the top surface for pictures and knick-knacks (or, as my cats call them, toys).

* Side note - with the two full sized couches, this is going to recreate a problem we had when the furniture was pretty much arranged that way last summer. Anyone sitting on the couch against the side wall had to strain to see the tv. Or lay down with their head on the arm. Not very practical when we had company. But ... it's a temp fix.

* Paint. What I want to do is to do the dual wall coloring, adding a chair rail at the middle.

We've tossed around going the route of full wainscoting but, again, we don't want to shrink the room. I found a Home Depot book at a local used bookstore (for $1!) and it's been a serious resource of info and suggestions. I was going to do two colors that are in the same family, but the bottom color a much deeper, darker shade than the top. What I know now is that I need the same thought, but not such a dark color on the bottom. And I discovered (online) that you can get the same 'feel' of wainscoting if you paint the chair rail the same color as the bottom 1/2 of the wall.

* Furniture.

I go back and forth on the furniture. I've found contradicting articles all over the internet - some say go with more pieces of smaller furniture, while others say go with fewer large pieces.

What I do know is that 2 full sized couches take up a lot of space and limit what you can add / take away from the room. My latest thought is more, smaller pieces - chair, sofa, loveseat ... maybe a chaise lounge ... I dunno. I love sectionals, but I'm not crazy about the smaller ones. But a large sectional would probably be too big and, as with the large couches, create issues with people in one area seeing the tv without contorting themselves. So yeah ... I'm leaning towards more pieces of smaller furniture without having so many that it's horribly cluttered looking.

Not to mention that our budget is teeny, so our options for furniture are limited.

And that's it so far. We do have plans for the kitchen, but we've agreed to take this one room at a time. As opposed to my tendency to start a project in one room and then get distracted into a project in another.

Because I have the attention span of a bumblebee.

Anyway ...

If you've made it this far and have any suggestions, ideas, thoughts, etc ... please share them! I could use all the help I can get.