Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Living Room Reveal

I'm so excited to finally share one of the most loved spaces of our home, our living room. Its actually our living room/dining room combo. Living in a 1950's Cape-Style house you sometimes have to get creative with your space. We don't have a separate dining room and the way our kitchen is set up there is no place to put a table so we've combined the space with our living room.




Here's the dining room side:





We have our table and chairs along with our hutch set up in the corner of the room to delineate a dining area. The table and chairs was actually the set I used growing up. When my parents moved last year they asked if we wanted it. We had a larger rectangular table in this area previously that went with the Hutch but it was just a little large for the space so I was happy to downsize to a smaller table. I think it still goes nicely with the hutch. It does have a leaf so we can open it up and add more chairs if we have guests over.

Before I get ahead of myself here's what the paint in here looked like before..




Eek! I was debating even posting a before picture because its so awful. I snapped this picture just before we started to paint. The worst part of it is that this green was self-inflicted, we painted the room this color if you can believe it! I will say that it always photographed awful. I swear it wasn't this intense in person, but it was still pretty bad.

When we moved into our house (almost 7 years ago, wow!) this was one of the first home projects we did. The room was originally painted a dusty green and the trim was painted brown (The previous owners painted ALL the trim in our house weird colors like brown, maroon, gray...not sure what they were thinking..) Anyways, I actually liked the wall color but there were a lot of holes from where the previous owners had things hanging so we decided to re-paint.

Being paint novices, and living in a time before pinterest, we just picked a paint chip, swatched a small area and went for it. About halfway through the project I could tell we'd made a mistake. What looked good in a small swatch wasn't translating well for a whole room. We finished the project anyways and I've been not-so-crazy about it ever since. Whats worse is that the paint continues down the front hallway and up our stairwell. It took such a long time to paint the first time that we just decided to live with it for a while rather than do all that work again.

Finally last spring I finally convinced Mike to help me re-paint. Coming off that crazy green, I knew I wanted something neutral this time around. The new color is Benjamin Moore Clay Beige. Its a warm gray-beige. It looks more gray or more beige depending on the lighting in the room. Its a really beautiful, neutral color.







Its crazy how much a new coat of paint can change the feel of the room. It is so light and bright now!

One of the best things about painting with a neutral color is that it leaves you with so many options for decor. I decided on blue as an accent color and worked to add pops of color back into the room. One of the first ways I did this was through throw pillows. We've had the quatrefoil print rug for a few years and I wanted to get some fun throw pillows to compliment it. I chose to mix trellis and ikat patterns that are all very different but I think together they somehow make sense. I've been loving mixing patterns lately.












Besides throw pillows I added some more pops of color through fresh flowers, candles and coffee table books. Its those finishing touches that made the room feel complete.




We've been working on this space little by little since we painted last spring. Its definitely "lived in". Its not perfect with a lot of mix-matched furniture but I think it the pieces oddly work together. I've had so much fun revamping this space. Its not the biggest space, but it's cozy and we've made it work for us. We've come a long way since the green monster! Hope you enjoyed this peek into our living room/dining room!


Reference:

Curtains: Target
Monogram Pillow: Sew Gracious on Etsy
Patterned Pillows: Say it with Pillows on Etsy
Candles: Anthropologie
Coffee Table Books: Amazon
Tray: Home Goods
Rug: Target
Frames: Crate & Barrel
Table Runner: Ikea
Coasters: Anthropologie
Fish Bowl Vase: Home Goods
Bud Vase: Crate & Barrel


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