The Living Room (Coming Together) . . .

The poor living room aka "the staging area" is probably the most neglected room in the house.  The number of times we move the furniture around in a weekend is almost nuts.  To make up for our rough use . . . I've been trying to give it some little "presents".  The first presents actually came from my mom - new Pottery Barn Pillows -- I just love the coral one in particular, its great for napping. 

The second present was slip covers for our old college sofas.  The sofas were really getting run down -sun faded - needing TLC badly.  Unfortunately, we hope to replace the sofa soon with a hide-a-bed model and so I didn't feel like spending oodles of money on the cover.  Jump in IKEA & my favorite sewing project friend/master Laurel.  We tackled adjusting a newer IKEA slip cover to the sofa and the loveseat.  Needless to say, the loveseat went according to plan . . . the sofa not so much. 

The funnest obstacle to overcome was my oversite on the number of cushions our sofa has vs the slip cover (I blame it all on baby sleep deprivation).  The existing sofa had 2 cushions, the slip cover 3.  Ala the web, I found that you could cut upholestry foam with an electric carving knife.  Having convienced Gary of the project, I blatently used his measuring skills and confidence to forge ahead on cutting my sofa apart.  It worked like magic . . . the electric carving knife just went through the foam like butter.  Now I only need to figure out how to let the lower seams out a bit.  Its a bit tight - kinda like my jeans right now. 

The third and final present to date is a fun, funky bar stool.  I just love the power of paint, especially aqua paint.  It transformed an ordinary, beat up Goodwill find into a thing of beauty . . . just look