Metamorphosis Monday: Living Room Re-do

I'll be joining Susan again at Between Naps on the Porch, this time for Metamorphosis Monday, with a couple pictures of our living room at Le Beau Paon Victorien. Our living room recently had some welcome changes made to it!

This was how the living room looked before. Most of the furniture in here, and the color scheme we used, was from Erik's apartment before we bought the house shortly before our wedding. Even though the downstairs rooms, including the dining room and formal parlour, have a distinctly Victorian style, our living room looked relatively 'modern'.

We also had a monstrous large entertainment center (which was Erik's from his apartment and which he bought 20 years ago) that also had huge cabinet speakers on either side, which took up a large amount of space. I don't actually have a picture of it because I always avoided taking any pictures of that side of the room because it was so darned ugly!
Here's what we replaced it with:

The new media cabinet is much, much smaller. We also got rid of his old stereo with the giant speakers( which we used for our sound system). We're going to get a newer system with small wireless speakers. We also got a new TV. It's a 50" and Erik is very happy to have a fancy new TV ( I am too!). We only had one TV in the house and it was also very old and was relatively small--a mere 27". We had planned for some time to get a new TV (we love the flat screen!) and also to get a smaller media cabinet so we could get rid of the dinosaur in our living room. Now we'll  also be able to use the door that you see on the left. Before, the giant speakers were in front of it! The door opens onto our back porch (there is another door in the kitchen that goes out there also.)

We also recently acquired two more antique pieces of furniture from an estate sale. This love seat was one of them. There was a boring old brown chair here before. The upholstery on this one isn't bad, but it's pretty faded and I plan to have it re-upholstered in a different color to go better with the new color scheme we chose for this room. Olive was being my cat model again today.

I love the carving on this piece! As you can see here, there's pink flowers on the fabric.

I think this is Olive's new favorite spot to chillax.

So here's the new look for our living room. The sofa was in the parlour, but we decided to use it in the living room instead. It's a modern piece, but in a style made to look sort of Victorian. We got this sofa for free earlier this year from a friend of Erik's.(Click HERE). I want to have the love seat upholstered in a fabric and color that is similar to the sofa. The rug is brand new, and the pillows,too. I bought the pillows from Home Goods after I saw this rug. I was still able to keep my black curtains and the black coffee tables. The end table will soon be leaving (it's brown and a cheap beat up thing I've had for years). I also found a new beaded lamp. There's another chair off to the right that isn't in the picture; it's black, but sort of modern looking and came from IKEA. We are going to get a new chair to replace that one eventually; a larger, comfier chair probably in a similar style to the sofa.

I am so in love with this rug! We bought the media center, TV and rug from a large furniture store in our area called Colder's. As I explained to Erik, the design challenge I was faced with in this room was how to use some of the nicer things that we wanted to keep, that were fairly new (like the curtains and the coffee tables, which we bought from Pottery Barn and which were surprisingly expensive) yet also try to give the room a new look that might fit in slightly better with the rest of the downstairs, but was also a room in which a big giant flat screen TV wouldn't look too out of place and would have comfy furnishings for movie watching and other gatherings (despite my encouragement, many  people seem afraid to actually sit on my antique furniture!) I think I accomplished what I set out to do. There are still a few decor items we would like to add; a new chair with an ottoman, a floor lamp, some valances to go with the curtains etc., but it's coming together nicely!

E.B. was also my cat model during the photographs.

Where we had the sofa in the parlour, we replaced it with one of the other pieces we got at the same estate sale.

The brown sofa that was in the living room has been moved upstairs, where it will reside in Erik's man cave.
There is a third piece we acquired from the same estate sale, but I will save that one for another day.

Thanks for stopping by!