Living Room: Before & After

I'm finally catching up on my blog, I'll admit I've been lazy about it. It's just been a busy couple of weeks since Christmas and we have put a pause on the home renovation projects. We barely finished painting the trim in the kitchen, and fixing the loose ends of painting the ceiling and bedrooms. We still want to finish the backsplash in the kitchen, but I think we're going to change the tile countertops to granite with the help of my best friend, Des. I love our house, it's perfect for Eric and me.

However, we recently purchased a new tv for my 30th birthday. It's a funny story because my wonderful husband was planning to take me to Napa Valley for my birthday weekend. We were going to visit the vineries, take a wine tour, stock up on some great wines, stay at a bed and breakfast, and maybe a balloon ride over the beautiful area...it didn't work out. Eric has a saturday class for his professional engineering license which started Feb. 7th until April 11th. I didn't want to put any time constraints on my birthday weekend so I did a little calculating for our trip. The amount we would have spent on the wine trip, flight tickets, wine tour, balloon ride, rental of a car, hotel price...would have been over $1000. Eric would have taken me on the my wine trip if I still wanted it, but I asked if we could put the money towards a new tv. We have been eyeballing them for 2 or 3 years now. Our current tv was a 32" Sony and it weighed 200 pounds, and we bought it used on craigslist. It was a perfect fit in out apartment, it looked like a smurf in our new house. We bought a 52" Samsung 1080p, 120 hz Flat panel LCD Hdtv. OMG, it's awesome, and beautiful. We also purchased new TV entertainment center at Costco that fits in beautifully with our living room furniture.

Here is the before picture of our living room, futon couch & recliner and 2 rocking chairs from Eric's parents.

After: New espresso brown leather recliner couches, new rug from BB&B, added the patio blinds, added additional bracketless shelves along the wall - all found at Lowes. Added some decor touches, we have our Unity sand bottle & cake initial topper on one shelf, a couple vases filled with my saved wine corks (yes, we drink alot of wine), some orchids that my girlfriend gave as a housewarming, and a wine cork tree that I had made, and these cute wooden flowers that I got from Costa Rica. Our Wii is tucked away inside the entertainment center, my balance board is in here as well. You don't see it, but there are side shelves that open up where I put all my games & DVDs. The entertainment stand has a swinging floater for our tv, and its not mounted on the wall. That would have been a huge hole in the wall!

We need an end table here, we're NOT adding a coffee table because we like the extra space when we play Wii.

I love the new look of the living room, but I think it needs more color but I'm searching the furniture stores, garage sales and craigslist for little decor elements. What do you think? What am I missing?