Our Lounge Update

I always knew our lounge would be one of the last rooms in our house to get decorated. I didn’t ever see a time when it would be possible to decorate it. With two small children running around and it being our main living space. So when we decided to have a chimney breast in Little Man’s room removed it made sense to remove the whole chimney breast in the lounge too. This was the catalyst for having the lounge decorated and our decision to pay someone to paint it for us.

I have always been the decorator in our house, and I painted our bedroom last year. But trying to juggle two children, Dave’s working hours, my working hours and childcare I just knew that I wouldn’t be able to manage decorating too. So we enlisted the help of a local decorator and had the chimney breast removed and the decorating done whilst we were away on holiday.

What was our lounge like before?

Here are a couple of photos before the work was done. The lounge hadn’t been painted in over five years and no doubt much longer than that. It was also prone to damp patches around the chimney breast

We had a week holiday in Bluestone Wales and came back for the weekend after the building work was done. This was before the decorating had been started. Here are a few pictures of that stage – I remember that weekend as dirty, dusty and hard work. We were glad to go off to Center Parcs on the Monday!

How was our lounge when we came back from holiday?

After Center Parcs we came back to a lovely decorated lounge. I had been looking everywhere for living room inspiration. We’d decided to choose a colour that was in keeping with our Victorian home. We also wanted something that would also go with our purple sofas. I was adamant we wouldn’t be having beige or off white. I wanted a colour. So we went for Dulux Polished Pebble. A nice shade of grey and one that works well in the room. It keeps it bright and airy whilst adding colour. I love it.

Our lounge was, at one point, two separate rooms. It was a lounge and a dining room, but got knocked through at some point. It’s a great space for us and feels so much bigger without the chimney breast. We use one half as the TV part and one half as the playroom. Although toys inevitably occupy both sides of the room and I quite like it that way.

The children have a lot of toys and most are stored in our Ikea unit. Although we do have a proper toy box – which mainly contains blankets and throws! There’s also an area by the french doors where toys tend to congregate. This is mainly Little Man’s garage and cars. He also has a car mat in the middle of the room too.

We have a bookshelf near the high ceiling to make use of the space. This was there when we moved in and it’s a great use of space. It has all our books and board games on and everything is safely out of reach of the children.

We bought a matching pair of lights for the lounge that really tie the room together. They look traditional to be in keeping with the house and they took a lot of searching to find. We have had mismatched and not very attractive ceiling lights since we moved into the house. Now, having such lovely ones feels like a good job done.

LP and Little Man have a kitchen and workbench that fit well together. Although I am looking for something to put on the wall above them. Maybe a print or something – wall art is definitely always one of the last things I buy!

The other part of the lounge is full of seating. Our sofa and chair and the children’s armchairs, all around our Ikea button rug with good views of the TV! I love our shelves either side of the chimney breast and they house our huge movie collection. Our fireplace now feels finished off with our mantel clock and mirror.

I have been picking up bits and pieces for the room for some time now. A couple of vases for the window ledge. I bought A&T letters to match the D&D that Dave and I have had for years. We bought new curtains. We kept Little Man and LP’s hand and foot prints where they have always hung by the window.

I have also been collecting new cushions over the past few months. We put up lots of photos in frames as I unboxed them after the building work. I’m going to be making a photo wall above our sofa in the coming months. I know a few of those photos will be rehomed in shiny new frames on the wall.

So there you have it. Our new lounge and where we spend so much time. It’s comfortable, it’s bright but most of all it’s homely. It’s never very tidy. I tidied for the photos, but it’s a happy space and definitely the heart of our home.