Center of attention...

I'm hoping you're not sick of redecorating posts yet, since the house re-do continues. I'm thinking it will be completely finished by the end of the year (fingers crossed). October just flew by between driving across country and getting my fiancé's things unpacked and him settled. We also redid the master bedroom ~ all we need is our new headboard and it will be finished ~ and I framed the art for the TV room. We're mostly waiting for the furniture to come in for that room; it's been delayed. Once the furniture arrives, the room will finish up quickly and I'll show you pictures then.
One room that is finally finished is the central hall. The hallway is in the center of the house and from it you can get to nearly every room ~ there are six doorways in it. Because of all the doorways, it doesn't lend itself to much in the way of furniture, so I let it double as a library. Most of our books are in this room (after much clearing out, I must admit), along with some of my brightly-colored Lowcountry art, which just pops on those deep purple/plum walls.
I wanted this room to feel like a room, not just a pass-through, and with its odd spaces, it took a while to find just the right things. I'm thrilled with the fab purple velvet chair below (the back, which you can see some of as you enter from the living room, is just gorgeous) because it provides the seating element I wanted while actually fitting in the space. The second large bookcase on the other wall was custom-built to match the first one (it needed to be tall and not very deep), and the old $30 dresser I found at the Salvation Army years ago finishes off the room while providing much-needed storage. Believe it or not, I didn't do anything to the dresser ~ it looked like that when I found it. It really was one of those fab finds.
I originally had a rectangular dark plum rug with gold accents in this room, but with the dark walls and the black bookcases and dresser, it just seemed too dark and heavy, especially since there's no direct light in the room. A friend of mine suggested I go with a round rug since I was changing it anyway and I loved the idea ~ I couldn't believe it hadn't occurred to me before. I found this creamy gray floral rug and fell in love with it, so I brought it home. It really does lighten the space, and the round shape seems to pull all the rooms together.

Here's the before of this corner (click here to see more before and in-progress photos of the hallway):

A close-up of the round floral rug I decided to go with instead of the dark-colored rectangular rug I initially bought for this room:

The fab old dresser I found at the Salvation Army: 

If you click on the photo at the top of this post, you'll get a bigger view of the room. I took this panoramic shot with my iPhone ~ I just learned it had that capability. I think it gives you a really good feel for the room as a whole, rather than just shots of individual areas. You can see five of the doorways in the photograph; I was standing in the corner shown above when I took the photo. Oh, the wonders of technology...

I hope all of you are enjoying a lovely autumn. Sending good wishes to everyone for a wonderful week...

I am linking to:
Mod Mix Monday at Mod Vintage Life
Make it Pretty Monday at The Dedicated House
Wow Us Wednesdays at Savvy Southern Style
Home and Garden Thursday at A Delightsome Life
Home Sweet Home at The Charm of Home
Inspiration Friday at At the Picket Fence

Photos by The Art of Living Beautifully