A Living Room Makeover

Hubby had a week of vacation this past week, so we spent it doing something crazy: totally rearranging our living room. ;)

It was supposed to be a simple matter of swapping the places of a few pieces of furniture, but it turned into a major decluttering/reorganizing/getting rid of operation that resulted in a fun, open new look.

Which is why I haven't been blogging. It was a huge project, and I wanted to use all the time I could with Hubby while he was off. We had a lot of fun, though, and it was great to have him around a little more than usual. :)

(For those of you interested in what my living room used to look like, you can see a few pictures in this post, but you'll have to scroll down through a few other pictures first.)

Here are some pictures of what our living room looked like throughout the course of the week:

And here's what it looks like now:

I love how much simpler and open it looks. I think my favorite part of the changes is my new work station: 

I get to sit by the window and look up at my fan mail, my awesome 25th Anniversary Beauty and the Beast calendar, and my character sheet. :) 

I have a fun little shelf with all of my art supplies and some of my collectible toys.

And I've got another shelf with more art supplies, writing materials, and doll repair supplies.

Unfortunately, tonight we had to bring several boxes and totes back into the living room (since they were stacked on our bed and we needed a place to sleep). ;) My goal over the next week is to continue going through things. I'd love to make the whole house a little simpler and a little more organized. I'm tired of feeling overwhelmed by stuff. Except for my toys. I never get tired of those. ;) 

Seriously, though, I'm trying to take an objective look at my collections and continue to thin things out a bit. I've already done some downsizing over the past few months, but there's still more to do. I feel like I have so much right now, I can't fully enjoy everything.

Of course, I'll never be a minimalist. When I get to my "bare minimum," it will probably still look like too much to a lot of people. But that's okay. I just have to worry about what works for me and my family. ;)

I'm sorry to keep you waiting on the earlier promised posts, plus my report on our writers retreat. When Hubby is back to work next week, I'll spend a little more time blogging. For this week, it was fun having a shared project and spending time together. :)

Hope you all have a wonderful new week when we start the month of NOVEMBER. (Seriously? Already?) I'll be back with more bloggy fun soon.