Living and Dining Room Progress {Philly Reno House Reno}

We're quickly wrapping up the house progress tour over here! You can catch up on what has happened so far in the kitchen, master bedroom, guest bedroom & office and bathroom if you missed any of the previous renovation progress posts, but today we're focusing in on the living and dining room.

Since our first floor is completely open concept, it make sense to group the living and dining room progress photos together. Let's start with the living room!

We tried out a couple of different furniture arrangements in here and settled on this one. You come right into the living room from the front door making it a high traffic area. It's also long and narrow, so it is important to maximize both seating and traffic flow in there. Putting the couch against the wall with the chair at the end of the coffee table seems to work best with the furniture we have now.

Right now, you can see below that we have that large antique jelly cupboard by the front door and it acts as a sort of entry table, but it's probably not going to stay there. I'd like to define more of an entryway space with coat storage on the opposite wall by the staircase. By doing that, it would free up a little bit of space to add another chair to the living area (something that's on my wish list).

If you turn around from that photo above, you'll find yourself in the dining room. This room has been in a bit of a holding pattern while we decide what kind of table we want. Our current one looks so tiny in here now! (Hello giant dining room!) 

Clearly we need a new chandelier here too. ;)

Looking into the kitchen for a sec, you can see we've made a bit more progress in here too: we have pendants over the peninsula and stools! I wasn't sure we wanted/needed the stools in here, but now I'm so glad we have them. It's awesome to be able to sit at the bar while someone is cooking.

Here's the view from the kitchen back toward the front door to help orient you a bit. (Also, can you tell I took these photos during Christmas? I spy a tree!)

Since I took these photos a few weeks ago, we've already made some more progress that I'm SUPER excited about. My awesome father-in-law came up and gave nearly all of the trim in the living and dining room a fresh coat of bright white paint (Behr Ultra Bright White), painted the living room radiator white, and put up a new light fixture in the living room. Last week I found a china cabinet for our dining room for a steal at a local second-hand furniture store that I can't wait to style up, and I bought two roman shades from West Elm that are on their way for the front windows. Can't wait to show you soon!

So what's on the to-do/wish list for downstairs now?

• Find a new dining room table and chairs
• Find a new light fixture for the dining room
• Figure out what to store in the china cabinet and how to organize it
• Define the entryway
• Finish painting trim and touch up other areas
• Paint the dining room radiator white
• Install the roman shades in the front windows
• Find a second chair for the living room

Making a list like that feels so daunting, but I'm trying not to put too much pressure on myself to define a timeline. It'll happen when it happens and I'm so proud of what we've accomplished so far! :)

Source List:

• Couch: Pottery Barn Comfort
• Chair: Crate & Barrel (no longer available)
• Rug: Pottery Barn Braided Jute (no longer available)
• Coffee Table: Holly & Martin Lydock
• Bar Stools: Target Hampden
• Kitchen Pendants: Capital Lighting (Graphite with Aged Brass)
• Jelly Cupboard: family piece
• Dining Table: family piece
• Dining Chairs: family piece

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