The living room has been through a few stages. At first it felt dated and mismatched with salmon-pink walls, orange-brown brick, and dark wood trim and paneling. Over time we started making it livable, and now it finally feels like a home — mainly because there’s a real couch to sit on instead of a pile of non-sit-on-able furniture.
While the current colors and finishes are far from the long-term vision for this space, we’ve begun imagining possibilities: refreshing the brick, adding coffered ceilings, and replacing or refinishing the paneling. For now, small functional changes have made a big difference in comfort and daily use.
Also: salmon might be Burger’s color. He looked ridiculously handsome curled up on the couch the other night.
About the sectional: we used to have a gigantic sofa to suit the massive 25-foot living room in our previous house. That sectional was about thirteen feet long and nearly as deep — enormous compared to the typical seven-foot sofa. In this new, cozier living room, that size no longer made sense, so we reconfigured our Karlstad sectional from Ikea. The sofa arrived in four modular pieces, which made it easy to adapt. We kept the main sofa and the chaise, and removed the loveseat and corner piece to avoid an overlarge U-shaped arrangement.
Converting it took about fifteen minutes: we reattached the exterior arm that used to be at the end of the sectional to the sofa section, then removed the extra middle pieces. The removed loveseat and corner are stored in the unfinished storage room, wrapped in a plastic drop cloth. Selling those pieces separately didn’t seem worth the hassle (and would likely only fetch a small amount), so we held onto them in case we want to repurpose Karl someday in a secondary room like a bunkroom or movie space.
We also repurposed a console we built two years ago. It’s made of three interlocking sections, and by leaving out the middle piece it nearly fits behind the “shrunk” sofa. There’s still about six inches of overhang on the fireplace side, so we plan to trim the console to make it perfectly fitted for this room. For our family, the combination of a console behind the sofa and a padded storage ottoman in front works really well — the console is handy for evening tea, and the ottoman hides toys and gives Clara a comfortable place to lounge.
The fireplace got small, practical adjustments, too. One of the brick wall’s original wood-storage niches used to sit open and felt like a dark void from the sofa. Since the fireplace is no longer functional (we hope to install a gas insert someday), we covered that opening with a leaning frame. It softens the view and makes the seating area feel cozier, especially during dramatic TV moments when you want fewer distractions.
On the opposite side of the room is an 80s wet bar that we’ve kept closed off with doors for now. We don’t have a current use for the space, but someday we might expand the kitchen doorway into that area. In the meantime, I enjoyed styling the built-ins in the corner — when boxes and clutter from moving filled the house, arranging books, ceramics, and a few small objects gave me an instant mood boost. That little corner went from chaos on moving day to a tidy spot within 24 hours. Small victories matter.
We removed several doors on the first floor to improve flow and sightlines. Taking down the doors that separated the foyer, kitchen, and living room makes it easier to keep an eye on Clara while cooking, and it lets natural light travel farther into the entry. Even with the house still showing off bold colors and a mix of wallpapers in different rooms, opening up those thresholds already makes the space feel airier.
The kitchen-to-dining doorway is also open now, and that change alone made the whole first floor feel breezier despite all the dark trim and wallpaper that remain. Wallpaper removal and trim updates are high on the renovation list; I’m planning to test several wallpaper-removal techniques and share what works best. Those kinds of projects are the ones that get me excited — imagining new finishes and practical updates for the living room, fireplace, and built-ins keeps the momentum going as we slowly transform the house.