anniversary house tour: in the family room

***In celebration of exactly ONE YEAR in this house
--well, truth be told, officially we have owned this house for one year and five days, but our household goods and furniture didn't arrive until this date, so that's what I'm sticking with :)
and in celebration of the fact that we are thisclose to having completed everything we wanted to do with the majority of these rooms (minus our in-our-dreams or if-we-win-the-lottery list), I wanted to [finally] give a bloggy photo house tour. Complete with Changes We Made narration.
I'm thinking I'll dissect a room a week. That'll give me time to finish up any loose ends and possibly get the one lone remaining undecorated and not even completely furnished room done (our master bedroom, isn't that always the case?) by the time I get around to posting all the rooms. ;)***

And we'll start things off in the family room. Mostly because tropical storm Lee and the nonstop rain for four days brought up some water leakage issues and we'll most likely be repairing walls and ceiling in there in the coming weeks, so you gotta see it while it looks good.

So.
Let's get this party started!

In the family room...
We have:
painted walls and (vaulted, ugh) ceiling (walls are Lowe's Valspar Stone Taupe $30gallon)
painted all trim, fireplace surround and back door (leftover paint in garage)
replaced ceiling fan (Lowes=$169)
new window treatments (existing wood blinds, existing rods spray painted antique bronze, 1 pair Ikea curtains cut in half to make 2 pair= $29)
revamped a dresser for storage (Craigslist $30, painted Lowe's Valspar Deep Turquoise $15/quart, new knobs Target= $8)
bought a new tv stand (Big Lots= $120)
lamps (already owned, new lampshades Walmart= $12/each)
rugs (already owned large carpet, new throw rug by door Target=$20)
toy/blanket basket (already owned, spray painted dark brown)
frame collection (already owned, star from BigLots $3, bought 2 M's on clearance at Hobby Lobby for less than $1 each and one is just chipboard)
mirror above fireplace (Tuesday Morning= $24)
patterned squares wall decor (wood at Lowe's= $15, scrapbook paper from my stash, modge podge and painted edges)
all other decor previously owned, repurposed and/or created

total $ spent: 489.00

The big tv and the even bigger couch are from our basement in our old house, the chair-and-a-half + ottoman were in our family room there. The area rug is from two houses ago and isn't really the right size for this room, but hey, whad'ya gonna do... free is free! I still would like to make/find some brighter colored throw pillows for the big couch. And I think eventually we'll make a coffee table (like the one in this post), but for now I'm liking the big open space.

So without further ado, pictures...

Before:



Nice, big, open room, but with thick, heavy dark drapery on the two small windows which made it quite dark. Also, I wish I would have taken a picture of the ceiling fan... big, dark, overly ornamental and kinda scary. We replaced it toot sweet. You may also notice a dingy dirty (and brass trimmed!) gas fireplace. Walls (as in the whole house) were a dreary not quite yellow not quite beige.









And the now: