the pink living room, in progress

I've been playing decor musical chairs lately.  The red in the living room went upstairs to my master bedroom, and all the pink in that room came downstairs to the living room.  I also rearranged the furniture, for the millionth time.

I've admitted before that furniture layout is just not one of my many talents.

Here's how it looked last, with the tv slightly blocking the window. Not the worst thing ever, but not the best, either.  If we were using this as a formal living room without a tv, as it was intended, it would be really easy to just plop a pair of chairs in front of the window and be done with it.

However, we are using the intended family room space as our dining room (see it here as a family room), so this front room is our living space with a tv.

And here it is, pinkish:

I like that the tv is finally out of the window.   I also like that instead of pink/navy dining room and red/navy living room sharing the same open space, I now have two pink/navy spaces.  It feels very open and spacious.

The only real problem with this setup is that there are no overhead lights in this space, and nowhere for lamps.  I tried the Drexel console behind the sofa, but it was too crowded.  I tried some candlestick lamps on the dresser on either side of the tv, but there wasn't enough space.

If I owned this house I'd install can lights and an overhead fan toot sweet, but, not my house.  Inadequate lighting remains.  

I took down the two large paintings that were on the wall behind the tv, because they have a lot of red in them.  I have an idea for some art that I hope to get to soon.  Although perhaps I should install plug-in sconces on either side of the tv instead?

The pink spraypainted lamps have a new life in the foyer with the pink splatter painting.  However, I need to hide the lamp cords, and fix the wonky harps (and take my phone off the table) before I put a full picture up.  

I frequently go to a local consignment store that is in a large, dark warehouse, and for weeks I have been admiring this pink houndstooth pillow.  I thought it had a nice ombre look to it, fading from light pink at the top to dark pink at the bottom.  I bought it for $12, and when I got home I realized that the "ombre" effect was actually sun damage.  Doh.  

the formal dining room

Last I shared the formal dining room on the blog, we were using it as a playroom.

Around New Year's, I think, I got into a rearranging frenzy and put the playroom back in the eat-in kitchen area, and made the formal dining room back into a dining room.

Everything in the room we already owned. I've bought very little for this house; I just keep playing musical decor with stuff we already have.

I won't show you the bookshelves head on, as they are unstyled, working shelves that hold books and board games and legos and a bunch of paperwork.

The dining table from our old house has been sitting out in the garage, as it is too big for the eat-in area. The ikat slipper chairs are not dining chairs, per se, and are a little on the low side for dining, but they are comfy.  I usually have my computer set up in here and paperwork everywhere.  

 You've already seen the art in a previous post.

Next post: the sad pink living room.

Problem solved: no more pink

This pink bedroom idea is just not working out. 

It is not the worst, but nor is it very exciting.  

Awkward segue: last week I recovered a lamp shade for the living room.

Since I have been playing musical lamps, the brass lamps were on my nightstand, and I brought the lamp shade upstairs to try it out on the brass lamp.  I thought it looked fabulous, especially on my blue nightstand. 

Amidst my despair over the sad pink bedroom situation, a wonderful thought occurred to me: why not move all the red stuff from the living room upstairs into my bedroom? 

And I did. Like two seconds after the idea popped into my brain.  

Now my bedroom looks like this: 

Don't ask about my living room.  

Pink lamps: the Impossible Dream

So.....no one sells pink lamps.  Like, nowhere. (Except the short pink lamps at Target.) When I started down this path I had no idea the difficulty involved in finding a not-lilliputian and not-covered-in-butterflies pink lamp.  Or I would have come up with a different plan.  Beware, all ye who seek pink lamps.  Behold my sorrow and despair.

I don't want to spray paint lamps.  I have done it before (see here, here, here, here, and here) and it is always a pain. I hate spraypainting lamps.  I prefer to avoid this debacle if possible. Plus, I didn't have any lamps that I wanted to cannibalize.

So, I was going to buy some pink lamps--the only non-miniature pink lamps anywhere on the internet under $299 apiece--from Lamps Plus.  They have multiple shades of pink, and depending on the model lamp, they are about $99 to $150 per lamp.  However, just to be sure of the color, I stopped by a Sherwin Williams to check out the paint chips.  My front runner was Coral Reef, which is a very pretty coral on my computer screen:

and very brownish-orange on the chip (although if you google SW Coral Reef many beautiful bright pink rooms come up):

There are other shades, but most of them are Pantone colors.  Apparently until two weeks ago, you could get Pantone paint chips at your local Lowes. But the day I decided to order a lamp in a Pantone color, Lowes got rid of that display.

I decided to hope for the best and get one of the Pantone color lamps, sight unseen.

Then I took three kids to the dentist and got a bill for 12 teeth with sealants, and decided that I would give spraypainting a go after all.

I used my least favorite lamps--a pair of yellow ginger jar lamps, one of which that has a wonky harp that I'm hoping I can fix. I already had primer and pink spraypaint in the garage.  The pink was a pinky-pink with blue undertones, not like the coral in the rug, but it was in my garage and free.  I put on three coats, it came out nice but sort of flat, even though the paint is gloss.

Everything was going so well I decided I would attempt a clear gloss coat, even though my experiences with that in the past have been bad.

Should have listened to experience.

I sanded it down, even though in my experience, once it wrinkles you can either take ALL the paint off, or just get it flat and live with the crackles.

I started again with the primer. It too wrinkled. Sand down, clean off, prime again, lather, rinse, repeat. Four times.

Cookies were eaten. Curses were muttered.

I'm spending a ton of effort and time on lamps that have a crooked harp and that aren't as tall as I'd like them to be. The pink is wrong; everything in the room is coral-ish and this pink is candy-ish. Good advice: stop with these all-wrong lamps and just wait till I can afford new ones.

Does anyone ever take good advice?