Heavens to Betsy : The Den

When MLW and I first bought this house, I assumed the man room would be in fact the man room. No girls allowed and all that. MLW had a guest room all to himself in the rental and I pretty much never went in there. It was a "close the door when guest come over and pretend it doesn't exist" room. But, this house has been way diffrent. I'm in this room all.the.time. I think part of it has do to with that is where I feed the dogs and let them out in the morning and the other is that it is the farthest away from our bedroom. MLW works until 4 or 5 in the morning so when I get up he is snoozing away. The farther I can be from him but still watch the Today show is a good thing.
I had been trying to be nice and neutral in the design of this room as well, but last weeks dyi gold curtains pushed me over the edge. I'm officially hanging out in this room. Thus it is no longer the man cave, but the den. Boom.
As promised, I've got another ikea hack and just a general room update. So here goes...

I bought 2 of the Ikea vittsjo shelving units and tv stand to match a few weeks back. I had visions of a navy book shelf to pick up on the navy in the kantha throw on the couch with gold shelves. The first box we sprayed by doing each piece individually, but learned it was actually much easier to spray the shelfs once they had been assembled.

Good navy spray paint is shockingly hard to find. I wanted a very deep rich navy and all the classic brands had too much cobalt in them. I ended up finding this paint at Michaels's in "Prussian Blue". It is a little pricey but the color is rich and perfect. It also went on really smooth, was less smelly and only needed one coat. So maybe things evened out in the end?

A close up of the top, to show the color. The perfect navy spray paint.

And shelf one! I ended up not spray painting the bottom "wood" peice. I'm afraid I might have to rename this blog "So I spray painted *blank* gold." But it could still happen. My lovely in-laws are coming down this weekend and I was pumped to style these babies.

Shelf two.

If you have read this little blog since the begging you know how much I loved these ModCloth bookends. Welp they showed up from MLW's sweet grandma as a house warming gift. They are hilarious.

Of course there are a couple style tweaks I'm sure I'll be making but I'm pretty happy overall. MLW is happy because all his favorite books are on the shelf. Compromise baby.

View from the couch. The navy is ready more dark grey in photos, but in person it has so much more depth.

Ekk! Looks like a real room!

I know ya'll have seen a preview of the couch, but here she is up close. So comphy and another Ikea steal. The chaise lounge is my favorite spot in the house.

Close up of the kantha throw. Right now I've got black pillows on the couch with the touches of navy in the throw. Normally I say black and navy are a no-no, but so far this isn't offending me. It's always a work in process though.

Speaking of work in progress, this is the other side of the den. Its the hot mess express. Eventually we want to create a more organized work out area/ dog wangling place. One far far (emphasis on far) away day it might even be a play room.