The Great Living Room Debate and a Reveal

THE RAVENNA HOUSE Oh the great living room debate.

It has divided our house for months now. Really, it's quite contentious. Emotions are high. Gloves are off. And it goes something like this: I want a couch in our living room and Garrett says no. If you're anything like me, you're probably saying, "who wouldn't want a couch in their living room?!" I know! But for the sake of a fair debate, let me lay out both sides before we judge.

For the sake of a living room reveal, I'll throw in some extra pics. If you want to look back at all the renovations we did in here, check out this.

The living room has become our collecting grounds for miscellaneous furniture. See we used to have our super-comfy-almost-brand-spankin-new-hand-me-down-Pottery-Barn couch (thanks Mom!) in this room but moved it down to the family room as extra seating for Wilder's birthday party. And there it's stayed, for two months. Without a couch to take up space, the living room has attracted the remainder of our seating. There are two wingback chairs by the fireplace (a yard sale score) and the armless Restoration Hardware chairs (purchased at the outlet two years ago) in front of our vintage trunk-coffee-table. The wood bench by the window belongs to our DIY outdoor table and will eventually make it's way to the backyard (once the patio and fence get underway - more on that here and here).

Ravenna House - Whole Living Room Ravenna House - trunk and chair.jpg

Back to the debate.

Let's start with my side. The pro-couch side. Some might call it the right side, everyone else would be ~~wrong~~ ~~misguided~~ ~~silly~~ a lovely human being with a different opinion. Couches are important for many reasons, chief among them, they are comfy. You can curl up and read a book, take a nap, or catch a show. In our current living room arrangement, we watch TV sitting in the armless upholstered chairs. And while those really are lovely chairs designed for many useful pursuits, curling up and watching True Blood is not among them. Those wingback chairs are a bit more comfy seat, but they too have a downfall - the scratchy wool they are upholstered in (now, don't get me wrong, I love that wool, it's just now curl-up-worthy). So there's really no comfy spot to hang out in our living room right now. And that, my dears, is my whole argument for adding a couch to this space. I mean comfort is a pretty compelling reason, right?!

Now for Garrett's side. The anti-couch side. He feels that the basement family room is our hang out space - the spot we play with Wilder and watch TV on the couch. Apparently the living room is more of a formal sitting room in Garrett's mind (my words, not his). And he would rather have our comfy couch in the family room. He also doesn't like the alternative seating for the basement: a brand-new couch or our 10-year-old futon. Those are his only arguments against a couch in the living room as far as I know. And I think I've presented them pretty impartially-ish, so let's let that sink in.

Sunk in? Alright.

The truth is, I think Garrett's sitting room theory is fine, but we don't tend to use the living room as a sitting room. In fact, Garrett and I hardly use it at all. Because there's no couch!

Besides there not being a couch, there are a lot of positives to our open living room. We've never had a great room before and I finally get why they're so popular. It's nice to have a spot for Wilder to play when we're in the kitchen. Plus Bubba likes to find a sliver of sun in the living room and bask in it. We can be together as a family while doing completely different things, and I love that.

There's still work to be done in this room. I intend to dress the mantle up and perhaps hang some art on the walls. But I'm not in a rush. Because as I showed you last week, this space has already come a long way and I'm ready to enjoy it! Preferably on a comfy couch.