OKLAHOMA REDHEAD: Living Room Redo 2016

Life has been full these past months! I haven't posted in a long while. Several months ago I stated I would post 2x a week but life interfered, and I haven't had time to do so. I decided if I was going to do a blog post then I'm going to set aside some time each week to do one. Things are beginning to slow down enough for me to sit down once a week to write a post.

For the past year and half I have been decluttering my home. After helping some with my Mom's house after we had to put her in a nursing home it made me realize I needed to declutter mine. It's taken me 4 years to start, but I started after my second knee surgery. I got rid of a bunch of stuff I no longer needed then decided this year to go through it all again. I'm not completely finished with this second time around but have 2 rooms left plus my garage. It feels good to let go of stuff. I tend to be too sentimental about some items, but I'm learning to let go. I haven't taken too many pictures, but the ones I will show you are a few weeks right after my second knee surgery. My youngest DD was taking care of me, and she questioned me on how I wanted my living room to look. All the pictures she pulled from Pinterest that I liked were of images of cozy libraries with sofas and chairs around the fireplace and bookshelves. These are similar to what we saw on Pinterest. I love the idea of a cozy chair next to the bookcase and fireplace to curl up and read.

I love books. I'd rather have a real book in my hand then my Kindle, but Kindle is much easier to take with me than a book. Plus if I finish a book I'm reading I always have another one I can start on.

This is what my DD did to my living room. She had already decluttered it by the time she woke me up to help her. What a day we had. I loved what she did with it. It felt cozy and comfortable and me!! The couch and rocker have been sold. I purchased a couch I have been wanting for a long time. I got it on sale. Can't beat that!! But because it is a much bigger couch. I had to move my little "Jesus chair" from the corner to where the rocker is in the below picture. But the essential coziness still exists.

Would like to get a different shelf to put on top of the wood red shelf. Maybe I'll have one made special to fit perfect on top of it. It's the only thing in the room that is not real wood. I love real wood and prefer that above what you purchase in stores now days. Here's a picture of the before. My DD had already removed everything out of the room before she remembered to take a picture.

And here is everything removed. I love books so I had a boat load of them. I went through everything and pared it down to what I knew I really wanted to keep. I'd love to have a library similar to one of the above pictures. Fireplace, cozy chair and a good book.