Living room changes - part 1!

Give me a day off (or even just a couple of hours), and I'll be itching to rearrange some furniture, artwork or at least a few accessories! During our holiday break, I enlisted my husband to help me tackle some major-ish rearranging in our living room. We have a large, dark wood armoire which housed our TV but was really too large, and too dark, for our living room. I had been wanting to move it for awhile and this extra time off finally presented the perfect opportunity - woo hoo!

Here's the living room before - you can see a sliver of the armoire off to the left. (Neglected, in-progress artwork-hanging projects sure jump out in photos - eek!)

The above picture actually includes yet another piece of furniture which has since been moved from the living room. It's a buffet (on the right, covered in pink tablecloth), now in the hallway.

Although both pieces provide much-needed storage, we decided that opening up this room was more important. And we still have the buffet storage, it's just a few feet around the corner! (The armoire is likely going to the home of a friend - it's just too big for our house!)

The above picture is the same arrangement, just from a different angle. Kind of makes me cringe to see it now - looks so cramped! But it's all a work in progress, and that process helped us get to where we are now, which I'm loving!

Here's the wall where the armoire previously lived:

The artwork resting on the floor is waiting to be hung. I'm going to try to attach them to the edges of the shelves with 3m strips - hope it works!

This bookshelf used to be along the same wall, but over to the left. Since the armoire was so much deeper, about a foot of actual space has been opened up. And the visual space we've gained is just amazing. The window on that wall was sort of cut off by the armoire previously, so we get more light now.

Also, moving the bookshelf has really centralized all of our living room furniture, so it feels more like a cozy room. Some context: our kitchen island basically overflows into our living room, so it's challenging to separate the two since they're essentially one room. Previously, I just accepted them as one room, but I think approaching the living room as it's own space and carving it out with a rug and furniture has greatly increased the coziness factor! Speaking of a rug... do you spy a sliver of it above? Yes, we finally got one! More on that very soon. :)

And I'm seriously thinking about this fabric for the ottoman. I love it on Kristen's (seriously - you have to go check out the cuteness!), and recently saw it somewhere else too - on a pillow i think - but can't place it at the moment. Just about ready to commit! :)