Living Room Moving, Shaking, and Painting
Look for the blue moon, folks, look who is posting two blog posts in one week! Don’t get used to it…although…I’m aiming to write more so maybe you should get used to it. I have so…many…projects…done..that just need photographing and writing up. Plus, I still have yet to finish all the before/after posts from our old, Maine house. I went to update the “Our House” page of the blog since it’s freakishly out of date and realized I’m still missing most of the old house posts. Anywho, this post isn’t supposed to be about my slacker tendencies, soooo, OOOOOOOOOHHH….PRETTY…LOOK OVER HERE!
Earlier this week, we shared the new living room painting progress and why we were moving our living room. We took a first pass at setting up the space and I am in love! Like, shout it from the rooftops because “I’m in love, I’m in love, and I don’t care who knows it!” (name the movie…hint it begins with an “el” and ends with an “f”). I spent an afternoon playing with accessories which is one of my favorite pastimes and thought I would bring you along for the accessory-playing ride. Disclaimer…I am not a stylist…actually, I’m a marketer who likes data reports and doing creepy things with digital ad campaign targeting…I just try to emulate Emily Henderson as best I can and hope for the best!
Living Room Styling Take 1:
Take one that pretty much went like this: set up the living room almost exactly like it was in the last room. Which was fine but the room felt a little boring. Enter the shameless trip to Target where I found $9 clearance curtain panels.
Living Room Styling Take 2:
No. Absolutely not. Fail. These curtains have got to go. I love the curtains, I really do, especially their $9 price tag but they just don’t work here. They’re 84″ long and way too short for the space. I thought I might be able to hang them lower and they would look fine, but no. The backup plan was to sew some fringe to the bottom of them to make them look longer but I don’t even like the color or the pattern in here so they go. The backup backup plan is to hang them in the guest room, which they look great in, so stay tuned for that later. So down came the curtains. I’m thinking some roman shades or something similar but in a gauzy, white fabric would be great instead. I’m already stalking some from Urban Outfitters.
Living Room Styling Take 3:
Now we’re heading somewhere. Since we had painted the room blue, I was thinking some tone-on-tone would look fabulous. So during the Target trip, my car just so happened to drive by HomeGoods and it just so happened to pull into the parking lot where I found both the blue and white vases. I’ve been on the hunt for gorgeous, affordable vases in decently substantial sizes and these fit the bill at $12 and $24. We’re heading in the right direction but the left side of the room still needs a little sumpin’ sumpin’.
Living Room Styling Take 4:
We’ve had that mirror for..like…ever (to quote the infamous poster). It was a thrifted find gifted to us by Colby’s mom and it’s been with us for the last five-plus years. It’s been in entryways, bedrooms, living rooms, halls, briefly in the attic, and now she’s home in the new living room. It balances out the potato sack art piece on the right side of the room but I think I hung it just a smidge too high. That’s what I get for being Ms. Independent and hanging mirrors while my official mirror hanger guy was away on business. I also added a white wicker stand and some of my favorite design books underneath the sofa table to fill out that dead space.
Living Room Styling Take 5:
Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner! I swapped out the red pillows for a few blue numbers who have been hanging out in totes in the attic. Pillow Hoarder just so happens to be my middle name. I almost donated these blue pillows to the Salvation Army when we were moving but thankfully decided to keep them. I love how they look in this room and it just makes me want to bring in even more blue. Although, if we’re playing the favorites game, hands down it’s the new white vase/vintage wood beads/Spanish dude combo.
Seriously, his name is “Spanish dude”. I was up in Burlington at Vintage Inspired Marketplace (a Burlington, VT must if you’re into antiques, treasure hunting, and chalk paint…a dangerous yet effective combo), buying a haul of chalk paint and doing a lap (or two) before checking out. It was during lap one that I came across Sir Spanish Dude. During lap two I checked him out again to make sure he was still there. “How you doin’, Spanish Dude”. I couldn’t get him off my mind. It was like he was the most interesting man in the world. I ducked back to his abode at booth 12, checked the price which clocked in at $23, and noticed his tag description. The tag read, “Spanish Dude”. So I tucked him under my arm and headed to the checkout. The shop owner also got a chuckle out of Spanish Dude.
The other items of note are the vintage wood beads that I picked up at the Big Chicken Barn (an antique store in Maine that’s called The Big Chicken Barn and is IN a chicken barn), the HomeGoods white vase, some Chinese-lantern flowers that we’re still holding onto from our first hosting of Thanksgiving, a thrifted blue vase, and my cherished Aroostook County Maine (my native land) potato sack that I framed last year.
With all the focus on the couch side of the room, here’s a snap of the television side:
Do you like how we cover up the weird hole in the wall with Colby’s family heirloom tapestry brought back from World War II in North Africa? The hole is still there. I know that’s what you were thinking.
I want to drape that tapestry over the back of the couch for added texture but I just can’t bring myself to do it. I see what Goose does to our pillows. There’s no telling what he’ll do to the tapestry. Speaking of the little devil:
He’s enjoying the new living room location. From the chaise he can scope out all the traffic going by the house…all three cars that go by each day. Ah, the beauty of a country home! And from the other side of the couch, he drapes himself over the back to overlook the meadow his kingdom. No mouse shall cross that field without Goose’s knowledge.
If you remember way back when we introduced you to our yard, you met our twelve outbuildings, one of which was the old homeowner’s library complete with thousands of books. We’ve started going through them and bringing in all our favorites, most of which are homesteading books including these:
The “Vermont Place Names” book was a gift I gave Colby for Christmas last year. It was written by the old owner of the house and is even signed by her. My eBay shopping prowess certainly helped track down that book!
With that, we’ll end this evening’s living room progress post. It’s so funny how the living room is shaping up and how much I’m loving it so far. I went into this project thinking it would be a temporary fix. That I couldn’t love the room because of the structural and electrical issues going on so I would just do enough to make it usable and move on to other projects. But it’s quickly turning into my favorite room in the house and the room is quickly becoming my pet project. I’m already scheming up a giant light fixture DIY project, envisioning bringing in some new squishy chairs to add more seating and hanging some larger-scale art (everything just looks so small with the high ceilings in here). I can’t wait to keep working in this room and finish/style it up.
It looks great and your styling is spot on! Where is your couch from? We’re purchasing a new to us house and gonna be on the hunt for one.
Whitney, we found our couch at American Mattress and Furniture Gallery in Bangor, Maine. We did a little shopping around and it was the cheapest (only about $700) and the most comfortable. It’s still in great condition and holding up well nearly four years later. Hope this help and happy couch shopping! Such fun!
Looks great, I love your style!
Thanks so much, Chris!
Beautiful! The hippie in me wants to put a hanging plant in the right corner above the lamp. 🙂 I guess what I really love about your style is that it always looks like a place where I want to hang out. It’s beautiful, well styled, and intentional…but not cold or uninviting. Well done!
That’s so funny you say that because the inner hippie in me has already picked up two hanging planters for that space!! Now…just to find the perfect plant that I’ll likely kill in two months! Thanks so much for your sweet comment. I love that you have an inner hippie too!