Musical Furniture Part II: Living Room & Patio

Welcome back to Musical Furniture: round two!

We last left off in the dining room and office, where the new presence of a lovely yellow table allowed me to add a much-needed workspace to my desk area, and two new bar stools provided some extra seating in our breakfast bar!

Today I'm sharing the other rooms affected by the great furniture influx of 2012--the living room and patio!

Just as the dining room shifts all started with a table, so too did the changes in the living room originate with the discovery of another table: this time a 3-shelf wood beauty from another favorite consignment gallery of mine, Roomer's. I actually spotted this pretty thing when we first visited the store on the Thursday of my parents' visit, but decided not to go for it because we'd already purchased so many things without consulting Ryan (that was the day after our fruitful Echo Echo trip), and because I wasn't quite sure where we'd put the table. So I took this Instagram picture to remember the table by.

But then...the table kept nagging at me. As we spent the afternoon thrifting and discovering the coolest map store, I pulled out my phone more than a few times to stare at the one that got away. So when we stopped back at my house to rest a bit before dinner, the wheels started turning and I found the perfect spot for the table: on our large living room wall, where our ottoman previously sat a little awkwardly:

This new arrangement would require relocating our existing end table, but that was perfect because the previous week I had actually discovered that our other end table (an old $0.99 Goodwill find that I painted brown) had a small crack in its facade. Nothing life threatening (or whatever the furniture equivalent of that would be), but enough to justify more furniture swaps.

So with the husband's approval acquired (thank goodness I'd taken a picture & that he trusts my vision!) we headed back to Roomer's the next day to buy the table ($70--after Kim knocked off $20 because she'd been planning to add a few brackets to fix a little wobbliness in the legs, a repair that Ryan can easily make). And here she is modeling away on the wall along with a few relocated accessories:

She's just close enough to the chair to serve as an end table:

Please ignore the cord smack dab in between the chair & table--it's been properly hidden now :)

I love the top shelf of the table, which features my weathered yellow window, a Pier1 lamp gifted to us by my generous uncle, some Target candles, and a mini globe from Ross, among other accessories. At my brilliant mom's suggestion, I popped a map I bought from Rocky Mountain Maps behind the windowpane--it's so cool! It shows all these sea routes:

I'm definitely going to visit the map store again--there's an antique Montana map I have my eye on (it's the perfect colors for our kitchen!), along with a map of North America that shows the distribution of American Indian languages in lovely shades of blue, yellow, pink, green, and orange. 

I'm not 100% sold on the styling of the middle shelf yet. It might be too cluttered? We actually have an old typewriter back in MO (knicked from my grandparents' house) that I think will look great instead there. 

I do like this arrangement better than the original styling, though, when I had a large basket holding magazines perched on the middle shelf:

Combined with the baskets on the bottom level, it just felt like too much (plus the large basket kinda overshadowed the other accessories on that shelf), so I moved the magazine basket to under the coffee table and restyled the middle shelf with a few books and some accessories you've seen around these parts before.

I purchased all the baskets from Michael's after mom & I went on an extensive search for ones of the right dimensions. I actually got them for 60% off--there was a 40% off sale and the checker was kind enough to scan a coupon that knocked another 20% off my whole purchase! Score. The trio of baskets on the bottom shelf holds our games and our candles/good smelling stuff:

Haha, yes, we have a game called "Smart Ass." And it's quite fun!

I already mentioned the reasons for the map switcharoo in Monday's post (and the swap was a little ironic since I'd previously declared the map perfect for the living room here), but just to give you an idea of how the map looked over the table, here's a shot before I moved it:

I like the table with the travel prints over it much better--the map just looked a little too big there, I think! And you can also see our Wii storage ottoman behind the green chair in the above photo. We ended up shifting our TV stand over so that the ottoman could fit next to it under our decorative stars. Previously the TV stand wasn't centered to the window which always drove me a little nuts:

But now it looks great centered with the ottoman next to it and our Prairie Sisters chair popped in next to the new table!

And here are a few zoomed out shots of the room to give you a better idea of how everything works together:

And just for kicks, here's a before and after:

The last furniture addition to our apartment? (Remember, I teased that we purchased 3 tables and 5 chairs here, and so far our count is 2 tables, 3 chairs). My parents were kind enough to purchase a patio set (and a little Weber grill named Smokey Joe, not pictured) as a graduation gift for me. We found the wrought iron table & chairs as well as the blue striped cushions at Costco! The chairs are comfortable without the cushions, but they make the seats even better.

So there you have it. A more updated look at our living room space. It's really starting to come together, I think! It's crazy to realize that we've gained so much furniture over the past two years. When we moved up, all we had was a mattress, dresser, my desk, two slim nightstands, two end tables, and a sofa table--and everything save the mattress and desk had been purchased specifically for the apartment. Meaning we really only brought two old pieces of furniture into our new home. We're definitely going to need a HUGE moving truck (and some muscle-y helpers) to haul everything out when we leave!

Any recent additions to your home? Do tell in the comments!