Our New Room

The previous dining room turned into toy storage room is now officially our new "den" - and I'm loving it. Completed on a budget of under $500 with the exception of having painters come in because several areas of the walls needed to be skim-coated, and that really needed to be done by professionals.

My goal was to create a New England style room that was comfortable enough for me to sit and read, and masculine enough for my husband to watch movies or play video games. Here are the results:

 

I've made a few changes since these photos. The area rugs are gone (moved to the master bedroom), the dark sailboat art laying up against the bookcase has been hung on the small wall to the left of the windows, and I removed the sole arm cover that shows in photo one.

Chairs were found on Craigslist for $185. The rest of the furniture came from our basement storage and other rooms in the house. The art work (all sailboats) were picked up at auctions over the last year, all for under $200, though they are originals and two are actually quite valuable. Drapes come from Target for $90 including hardware (which seems terribly high to me, but I did fall in love with them - what could I do?).

There as a 1980's shiney brass chandelier in this room (which again, was the builder's joke of a dining room - way too small to accomodate my table, chairs and hutch, nevermind people!) was replaced with a beautiful ceiling ficture that actually resembles the mast of a boat and the waves of sails! I found it on sail sale for $30 at Home Depot.

I'm absolutely pleased with the way the room came out. It is warm and cozy, has a great New England feel to it, but isn't so feminine that my husband isn't comfortable in it as well!

What do you think?