Decorating Our New Home: Living Room edition

We are moving into our new house just one week from today! I am so excited. We will still be renting because who knows when my husband will be moved to a new property. He graduated in June of 2011 and we moved to Cincinnati from Columbus for his first job! A short 9 months later we are moving again to Athens, OH. It is a lot of moving but it is all very exciting because it means his career is off to a great start! Well, the purpose of this post is not to give you our life story as a couple. I just thought a little back story was necessary to those of you that do not personally know us. I am super excited to move and get our new house set up and looking fabulous. I do not have a job lined up yet so any decorating will be done on a pretty tight budget. Like a spending little to no money budget. To get all of you as excited as I am I will be posting all of the projects I hope to complete in the new house. Keep in mind this is a rental so we can't do any major changes.

Living Room

Our new living room is quite large. So this room will likely also include some new furniture as our budget allows for it. And may also serve as a multifunctional area. Possibly a small office area or maybe even divided into living room/ dining room areas.

 I finally broke down and bought some of these Martha Stewart stencils. I got mine at Michaels and used a 40% off coupon.  I have been dieing to stencil some curtains and large area rug. So those are on the to do list for the living room. I also have a trunk almost exactly like the one pictured above that I plan to paint white. And I want to paint the whole gigantic room a nice medium greige probably like the rockport grey pictured below.

 I would also love to DIY a console table (see above) or some kind of bookshelf (see below) to place behind our couch for added storage and organization. 

 (ana-white)

 Love the paint color and grey couch. Our couch is very close to that color.

(thedecorista)

I love this look. So much storage. We would do white bookcases though.

Definitely want to do a knock off version of this west elm ottoman. 

I will be looking for a inexpensive thrift or garage sale coffee table to make it out off. We would put a tray on it and use it as a coffee table/ottoman.

I would also like to build some nesting tables from these ana-white plans. Or better yet find a used set that I can paint.

And last but not least I plan to add some more style and color by adding some large scale DIY art. And of course some fun throw pillows. I'm not sure what accent color I want to use yet. I am leaning toward yellow but we really don't own anything yellow right now so this would involve spending money on paint or fabric at the very least so we will see.

My main goal with all of this decorating and settling in to the new house is to use what we have. Or make things from supplies I already have. And when necessary buying things like furniture or supplies. I plan to be smart about all of this and keep everything on a super tight budget. So hopefully you will stop back by to see my progress. It should be interesting to see what I get done and how much everything will cost.