before and after, living area, part I

It's feeling like a slow news day here, so how about some "before and after" pics from the house? The living room is fairly spacious, so there are lots of angles from which to shoot pictures. It runs the whole width of the house, and traffic from the bedrooms to the kitchen/dining area bisect that space, so it is effectively two spaces. We have the conventional "living" area, with sofas, coffee table and TV, and what I am calling the "leisure" area, where we sit to read the newspaper, have happy hour, or just enjoy quiet or conversation in front of the fireplace. For this post (and the one immediately following) I'll show one view of the living area (I find blogger difficult when it comes to arranging photos, so we'll have to live with one angle at a time). Hopefully the angles from both before and after are close enough to make the comparison, although the upholstery the previous owners had is very similar to ours.

Before:

After: