a couple of weeks ago, i helped my best friend change some things up in her house, just for fun. she bought a few new furniture pieces and accessories, and wanted a different eye to help bring it all together...and you know i love doing these things...soooo, here's what we did:

before:

we don't have a "before" shot of the couch area, but at least you can get an idea...i moved the curtains up a few inches, since the ceilings are sooo very high. this way, they only "kiss" the floor, rather than drape. as you'll see, she added an awesome oriental rug, and i pulled some other things from around the house to set on the coffee table.

i really loved the idea of the eclectic grouping that she had at her entry way (with the mirrors, candles, etc), but i thought it could use a little re-"wrangling". (hah!) i took everything down, and re-hung it...i also moved those two hooks to the right side a little, and made a "coatrack" area for guests to hang coats, or set bags, etc., as you walk in...i thought it made more sense than to just have the two hooks hanging there vertically...eventually, a TV will replace it, but for now, i like the warmth that the cute little settee adds.

this is to the left side of the couch. she added another leather chair, which really helped fill in some space, and i moved a little side table in between the two chairs. she will later replace the little christmas tree with a lamp, but for now, it does give a nice glow! she also took down the colorful frames behind the chairs on the wall, and we moved in some other artwork for the walls...

and, here are the after shots:

i set the cute little garden stool to the right of one of the chairs to help anchor the space a little, and to provide guests with somewhere to set a drink when they're sitting at that chair. she also added that cute red throw pillow from pier one, which i think is great with the new rug...

as you can see, the ceilings are SO tall in her living room, which is great, but it does create the need to fill the space a bit more! i tried to bring the eye down a little by moving the lighting "down" with the floor lamp next to the sofa, rather than across the room, where it used to be.

she also got a couple of the ribba ikea frames, and we spraypainted them blue...(one of them broke in the process, so we are trying to fix it! darned cheap ikea frames...) she added some hand made paper, and voila! artwork. i really love the touch of blue there...

here is the new entryway area...

(try to ignore the giant holes i left behind in my tornado of hammer, nails, screws and drill...)

here, you can see the little "coat hanging" area...should probably have 3 hooks, but we were just workin' with what we had in the house!

curtains pulled up higher! much better.