Corner-of-the-Living Room Makeover

We're in the process of turning our living room/playroom into a living room/playroom/office. Whew! That's a lot of stuff going on in a little room. The original plan was to do Cam's room half-nursery/half-office. There just wasn't enough space in his room. So we had to find a new home for our computer; we ended up sticking it in the corner of the living room, which totally threw off the balance of the room. I'm hesitant to post this before picture; could my home really be this messy? Am I so used to it that I don't even notice it until it's in a picture I'm considering sharing with the world? In my defense, this was taken at the end of a long day that came at the end of a long week.
Bleh. Not pretty. I'm a big believer in arranging seating in a way that's conducive to conversation, not just against walls, but to do that you have to have things against the walls to draw the eye to the edges of the space - otherwise, your room would be visually reduced to the space of your seating arrangement. So I added some Pier One curtains (on sale, of course), a hand-me-down lamp from my parents, a Lowe's shelf and a printed canvas from Hobby Lobby. I also had to take a hard look at how many toys we were keeping out in the living room. It's a daily battle. Where do they all come from?

Here's what we ended up with:

So now the office space is kind of it's own defined area, and the curtains make the cornice box look more intentional and not like it's just floating at the top of the room.

I'm not in love with the lampshade. I wish it was a dark color. And I would love to have toy storage that blends with the living room, instead of being primary-colored plastic. For that matter, I don't love the computer in the living room. In my ideal world, the living room would be free of screens of any kind. (Don't tell D. He would not approve of my ideal living room.) But this room is a work in progress, like everything else in this house. I know there are crafty things that one can do to change the color of a lampshade, but I'm hesitant to jump into that one. Besides, it would be number 28 on my list of projects to get done in the next five weeks. Speaking of winding down all the projects, I'm going to be closing up my Etsy shop sometime in November in preparation for Cam getting here. So if anybody's thinking about ordering Christmas presents, now's the time. (Or if you're a Short, now is the time you're in full-out Christmas present-buying mode, anyway.)

Here's a fun slipcover I just did for a friend of my sister's. I love how it turned out. I'm thinking about doing an owl one for Cam.