Livable Living Room

I have been so busy working lately and squeezing in time with Elias and Jetty that I haven't shared many changes around our house. Recently we made a few bigger purchases and reorganized our living room and I'm just so excited to share the update with you. It took about a year but I'm finally pretty happy with our living room space.

We have moved furniture in and out of our living room so many times that I didn't even take pictures of most of the layouts. Nothing was really working so we decided we needed a few furniture pieces. Below is a "before" from when we first moved in. It's the equivalent of the hunched over frowning before picture of a woman's makeover because the room is a mess.  It never really looked this bad beyond when we first moved in, but it gives you an idea of what we were working with.

 After a new sectional and a couple of Ikea Hemnes Bookshelves we now have a livable living room.

I got the teal colour curtains on sale at Wicker Emporium for $8 each. They are so perfect for brightening up this space. I think I just need a few pillows on the couch that bring that teal colour in too.

I tried to style the shelves as best I could. It's not really my forte but I keep moving things around and each time I think it gets better. Anyone have an tips for me? I have a few things to add, but I love the work in progress.

Yup...one of the pictures on my gallery wall is sideways. I'm printing some Elias pictures for some of the frames and that's one of them.

The big grey baskets hold all of Elias' toys out of sight when he isn't playing with them. They are perfect because they are huge and soft on the bottom. They don't scratch our shelves and easily hold all the toys he would need. They are PC brand (shocker- -I know... I love PC so much it's silly) and are actually meant to be laundry baskets. They came with a liner that I removed. At only $20 each they were an excellent buy.

What do you think? Any tips or things you would add? Any shelf styling ideas to share?