The house tour continues!

Directly off the kitchen is the dining room. No more eat-in kitchen for us, but we’ll live. We found that when we had both (in our first place, which was huge but WAY too far from downtown), we never used the dining room. So, this dining room will hopefully do double-duty.

You’ve already seen quite a bit of my dining room inspiration, so I’ll just move right along. You should know, however, that the vertical blinds have already been taken down and burned. PHEW. (OK – we didn’t really burn them, but I wanted to!)

While we’re gaining a dining room, we’re losing our foyer and “sitting room,” so we have plenty of furniture to stuff into this room. In addition to our new dining set, which will seat eight with both leaves in the table, we’ve got to fit a china cabinet, a sideboard, a console table, and two Ikea Rast dressers. It’s going to be a challenge.

The living room is next to the dining room (and also accessible from the entryway).

It has three windows, and a gas fireplace(!!!).

For some reason, I have very few photos of the living room, but these two pictures I took of the couches for Craigslist do give a better idea of where the living room connects to the front door/entryway.

(Incidentally, does anyone in the Atlanta area want to buy these couches and matching ottoman? They haven’t sold yet, and they need to GO!)

Our current living room is about the same size, but has more wallspace, so I wasn’t sure how we were going to fit everything. To get a better idea, I measured the walls and our furniture, and used FloorPlanner.com to create a rough layout.

We’re keeping our current furniture for now, but I can’t wait to replace our dingy beige couches with something charcoal and velvet. My goal is for the living room to feel comfortable, but stylish. Fashionable AND functional. I don’t want anything fussy or formal, and I want people to walk in and feel at home.

Here are some of my favorite inspiration photos:

Karen‘s home via Marcus Design

Jennifer Margolin‘s home via Glitter Guide

Erika Brechtel‘s home via Glitter Guide

Victoria Webster’s home via Marcus Design

Via Savvy Home

Lauren Seeman’s home via Small Shop

While I was collecting these, I noticed that almost all of them have several things in common: Neutral-colored walls; neutral-colored, comfortable-looking couches; pops of color via accessories, textiles and art; brass/gold accents; and fur/sheepskin pieces. I have most of these covered already, and will definitely be introducing more. I have to squeeze in a gold spray-painted Vittsjo hack (like this one) somewhere!

So, them’s the plans for the dining and living rooms. And that’s the entire first floor of our house! It’s not super-spacious, but it’s cozy, and we love it.

Got any suggestions? I’d love to hear them!