Our living room was the space I was most looking forward to decorating when we moved. I created a style board and everything. My vision for it was to be modern, eclectic, clean, and comfortable. By clean, I don’t mean dusted and vacuumed, but rather, uncluttered. And after several months now, I finally feel like it’s in place.
There is just one thing that I still need: what shall I put on the coffee table? I want something simple so I’m thinking maybe a small terrarium like this or something more organic like this driftwood. (My dad would just die if he knew I was considering paying for driftwood to display on my coffee table.) So I open it up to you, friends: what do you think I should put on the coffee table?
This above-the-fireplace area was a real trick to decorate. It’s the most awkward arrangement of shelving! Also, as our luck was, the TV we had for this space was about 1/8th of an inch too wide. We ended up having to sell it and buy a smaller TV. My little brother got the good end of the bargain on that sale. 🙂
Everything you see in this room has a touch of my mother on it. She has been invaluable in pulling our home together, all the way from painting to custom-making drapes. I do not know what we’d do without her. These pillows used to be really ugly and brown (they came standard with the couch) so I ordered some fun fabrics and she recovered them all. Now, they are the perfect pops of color that I had dreamed of!
My plants seem to love this space just as much as I do. I was careful to get plants that wouldn’t require a lot of sun, but also not complete darkness. Because of the huge sliding door to the deck (it’s three panels wide!), even with curtains drawn, there’s plenty of light throughout the day. These three little plants are spearpoint ivy, rainbow peperomia, and red ardisia.
My piano shelf is my favorite feature in the living room and I just love how much personality it brings! My dad made it for me for Christmas one year back when I was in high school. It’s mounted into three studs with screws that are about 8 inches long and 1/2 around. The thing is so heavy, but it’s not going anywhere now that it’s up there. (knock on wood)
My tree continues to thrive in it’s corner. I think it is finally de-stressed. When I bought it, the lady at Lowe’s told me it would take a while to get accustomed because it would be stressed and I thought, “Oh boy, you and me both, Tree.” We’re both doing good, by the way.
(The tree is a schefflera and the plant you see a bit of on the right is a sansevieria.)
This fabric for the curtains was a bit intimidating at first because the pattern is so big. But, in the end, I loved the gray and I loved the geometric shapes and I trusted that it would look okay. Not only did the curtains turn out awesome, but they lend a classiness to the room while still being fun and youthful. Since there’s no wall space to hang pictures (the only free wall is where the piano is hung), I’m very glad to have great curtains to add some pizazz to the room.
My sister, Carla, hand-stitched this for us as a wedding gift. It is easily one of my favorites.
The blue “canvas” that you see is actually just 4 frame pieces from Michael’s that I put together to form a square and then I used my mom’s heavy-duty stapler to staple that cool fabric around it. Total cost was less than $10.
I had this wire basket from a long time ago–probably a Target find–and it used to be black. I got some yellow spray paint and changed that really quick. Side note, spray painting wire is soooo hard! I felt like I was spraying and spraying and getting the paint everywhere but the wire! Another side bar: how do you clean spray paint off of cement? Some of the mist settled onto a non-covered area and I don’t know how to get rid of it.
I knew nothing about curtains before we bought our home. Zero. In my research, the thing that came up over and over is that if you want to make a room look bigger, hang your curtains high and wide. Because of the size of some of our windows (they’re very large), I already knew I would need something custom just to cover the width. Then you throw in a length of 96″ and it’s nearly impossible! In the end, we invested in beautiful, durable, timeless fabric (that won’t go out of style in 3 years) and good lining. It’s unbelievable really how much this has helped our air conditioning!
My mom is a perfectionist so these curtains are truly a work of art.
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