Thanks for excusing my absence yesterday.  We have had a few set backs this week–all three members of our little family got the flu.  When it came and went with Greta on Monday, we thought we escaped it.  Oh no.  Wednesday night, it hit me hard and Chris followed suit shortly after.  Thank goodness it was only a 24 hour thing and we are feeling much better now.  In short, we’re really happy to put this week behind us.  It’s Friday now, which means only good things.  Our couch is arriving today.  Let me repeat that–OUR COUCH IS ARRIVING TODAY!!! After 3 months of living couchless in our family room, we can’t wait to cuddle up and lounge on it and finish that room off.  It won’t be getting here until this evening, so I’ll post some teaser pics on our facebook page and give you the full write-up for Monday’s post.

Since we got couches on our mind, I wanted to share before and after photos of a recently finished living room with gorgeous couches.  Chris’s brother, Brandon, and his wife, Stephanie, bought their first home earlier this year just a couple miles away from us.  It has been so fun to have endless projects between our homes and have family so close.  While we have been slowly renovating, bouncing from room to room in our house, they were fortunate enough to be able to do a lot of work on their home before they moved in and after just a few months of living there, their home is gorgeous.  These two could flip houses I tell ya.  Here’s how their living room looked before they moved in:

And here’s how it is looking now:

Wowza, right? You can check out the entire break-down of projects and sources over on their blog here.  What’s your favorite part?  It may sound so silly and trivial compared to the rest of the perfectly put together room, but I can’t get over that plant.  I just lurve it and I already told Chris (probably 6 times) I really, realllllyyy want a big plant in the studio.

Speaking of the studio, there are only 18 votes separating the top 2 area rugs and sometime this weekend I gotta call the winner.  Eeeep.  So, if you haven’t voted for your favorite yet, you can vote here now.  We hope you have a happy weekend, friends.  Ours is full of eating (I think we’re finally ready to think about food now that the flu has officially passed), picking up finishing touches for the family room, shopping for something to wear to my sister’s wedding and staring at/lounging/taking lots of pictures of our new couch.

What are you up to?

Psst.  Did you vote for our Melodrama vid today??