Finally...

...I would like to introduce my family room. (insert applause here)



I took all of the wonderful advice that so many of you had given me here and tried to put it all together. The wall color is Nantucket White from Ralph Lauren. I love this color and have it in my dining room, kitchen & office. (Of course, my husband is not too happy that I picked this color, yet again. He says that when I tire of it, I will now have to paint 4 rooms to get rid of it. I would rather not think about that right now. :) Even though the color has the word "white" in it, it is not a true white, more like a creamy beige. I know in the photos below, the color looks pretty much different in each one.





My sisters helped me paint and we thought we would have a horrendous time covering that orange but luckily, it was fairly painless. Well, painless as far as the coverage was concerned. I know I can attest to the fact that my body was not painless after 2 days of painting! (Hey LeAnn, how do you survive all the painting you do? I don't think I'd be able to walk after all that!) With both of my sisters helping and my mom over too, not to mention the deck being built for the pool, there were so many cars outside my house that weekend that one of my close friends called me, worried. He had seen all the cars and was hoping everything was alright!



Pulling the blue from the rug, I did have an extremely hard time finding blue accessories. Now if I was using turquoise, I would have been able to find items in abundance, but no, not me. I always have to be looking for the impossible.



After having this room orange and dark for so long, I have to admit that the lightness of it now, is a very pleasant change. I didn't want to add curtains at first because I wanted to soak up the daylight. I did decide to add just a valance for a little color but not a full curtain to block my glorious daylight. I was hoping for a more whimsical curtain, as well as pillows, however as I have said, the shade of blue I was looking for had very limited options.


The above photo shows the wall color pretty accurately.

I do need to tweak things here & there yet. The side wall desparately needs something besides that white edged mirror. I also would love to eliminate the monstrosity of an entertainment center, but this is something that will take some doing. (I did try just the middle piece alone without the side bookcases, but my husband kept saying, "Where will the bookcases go, not to mention all the things in them?" I, having no answer of course, knew I didn't have a leg to stand on.) So, I'll have to keep thinking about this and come up with a concrete plan in order to convince him. Keeping my fingers crossed on that one.

Here is the before:



And here is the after:





Since Debbie has encouraged me, I will be linking this up to Met Monday at Susan's fantastic blog, Between Naps on the Porch. So go on over and check out all the goodness there.

Oh yeah, if you haven't had a chance to sign up for my cottage giveaway and would like to do so, click on the picture in my sidebar.

I think this post has gotten way too long, sorry about that. Have a wonderful week ahead! The weather here is looking good. It's so nice to see the sunshine again and I hope it's shining all week for you as well.