An Ugly Separation - Part One (Our Basement Gets an Update)

No, I'm not talking about Tom and Katie or Heidi and Seal. I'm talking about the separation of the red and green in my house. As long as I've been married and decorating houses, I've used lots of red and green together. I've always loved the bright energetic look, but lately I'm not so sure about the combination.  My kids were always telling me that my living room looked like Christmas all year long.  Instead of completely getting rid of all of the red or all of the green in the house, I've decided to keep all of the green on the main floor and move all of the red to the basement. It's a much less expensive option than completely starting over.

Here is my once bland and empty basement with the new additions (please forgive the awful photos - the basement is so dark and hard to photograph):

I love that there are just subtle hints of red, and it's not too "in-your-face."

These inexpensive prints used to reside in my living room as two sets of two.  Here in the basement, I have the space to group all four prints together. 

With the exception of the linen-look pillow in the center of the sectional, which was a recent purchase, all of the pillows down here came from the living room. 

 I made these pillows.

 

This is the pillow I purchased at Target.

Several pieces of art have been moved from other areas of the house to their new home here in the basement.

Look - it's Memphis!

 

This beautiful piece was done by my oldest daughter.

This rug, which was once in the living room, looks right at home in the basement.  The busy pattern will hide a multitude of sins.

Our old living room coffee table has a a new look thanks to the addition of two seagrass baskets that are perfect for concealing games and videos.

We are fortunate enough to have a little area in the basement where the kids can play games and air hockey away from the television.  We have outfitted the area with an inexpensive table from Target, perfect for playing board games, and a chalkboard that can be used to keep score.  The chalkboard was an easy DIY project that I made using an old mirror frame and some chalkboard paint.

 

This sweet little mug keeps chalk and an eraser handy.

In our last house we used this armoire in the bedroom, but there is no room for it in our current bedroom.  Fortunately, there is plenty of room in the basement, and it has served us well as storage for games and toys.

I was lucky enough to find these substantial iron pieces on sale at Kirkland's.  They were only $59 each. 

The bar area hasn't gotten any sort of makeover, but I thought you might like to see it anyway.

When we have parties, we set up the food buffet-style on the bar.

Here's the living room before I started removing everything.  You can see a few of the items I moved to the basement - the rug, the picture over the couch, the pillows.  Again, please forgive my poor photography.

Of course it looks like Christmas here, this photo is from our first Christmas in our new home. I've got to admit, I get what the kids are saying.
 

Moving so much out of the living room left quite a void.  I think a shopping trip may be in my future.  I'll show you the updated living room at a later date in a post entitled "An Ugly Separation - Part Two."

Sources

• Handmade Pillow Fabric - Calico Corners
• Coffee Table - Overstock (I spray painted the legs)
• Rug - Tuesday Morning (about 9 years ago)
• Set of Four Harbor Prints - Home Emporium (also known as Discount Building Materials or Southeastern Salvage, depending upon where you live)
• Large Iron Wall Decor - Kirkland's
• Bar stools and Pads - Pottery Barn (about 8 years ago)
• Linen-look Pillow on Couch and Game Table - Target
• Seagrass Baskets - Home Goods
• Framed Prints - Local Shops

Have you ever given your home or part of your home a dramatic makeover just by moving things around?  I'd love to hear about it.

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