The Living Room

Hey! How's your day going? So I realized yesterday that I haven't shown most of you much of my living room yet. Oooh, goodie, instant new post:)

Our "living room" is the room directly to the right and at the front of the house off the foyer when you come in the front door. Here's what it looked like on move in day. That opening on the left takes you down a step into our "family room", which was part of an addition to the house before we bought it.




You've seen my fireplace. Right now it looks like this for fall. It will change soon for the holidays. (Every year we host an annual holiday open house...its like our thing. Usually its the weekend right before Christmas, this year we have to have it on Sat. Dec. 5th, which is in like 2 weeks!! Yikes. I'm thinking I have no choice but to start the decorating this weekend. Sorry, Thanksgiving.)




The living room has a bit of an awkward layout but we tried our best to work with it. There's 3 doorways and 3 windows and 1 fireplace...lots of things to arrange around. We ended up with 2 club chairs in chocolate brown leather (from Boston Interiors) on either side of the fireplace, facing away from it towards the wall with the sofa on it.




I took most of these pics sometime over the summer (oops), so a few things are different now. Above was summer, below is fall.




If you back up and take in more of the room, it looks something like this. (Not the greatest pic, sorry.)



Turning around, the only place we could see fit to put the sofa was on this wall, opposite the fireplace. (That doorway on the left leads out to the foyer and the front door. There's another doorway on the right that you can't see that leads into the kitchen.)

{the sofa is from Bernie and Phyl's...here's 2 of my favorite things in the room, this hand-made wool throw my mother-in-law brought us back from Ireland and my Pottery Barn little knubby stitched floral pillow covers}

The coffee table and end table are from Target. We bought them 3 years ago when we moved in and before I really got more into home decor/design, started figuring out my style and what I like. So I'm not thrilled that they both match completely and I think they are a bit too much dark brown/espresso in this room with the dark brown leather chairs. But they're not terrible either.

Another issue with this room is the flooring. Right now its this nasty cream carpet. See the foyer in the back left down there? It and the kitchen have hardwood floors in a cherry finish. We are currently debating about what to do with the floor in here and the rest of the downstairs...this will have to be a separate post).





I've painted this room twice now. First I did Benjamin Moore's Danville Tan which turned out to be darker and greener than I wanted. Now its BM Smokey Taupe which I like alot better. The family room on one side a soft yellowy-gray-green (Sweet Spring) and the kitchen on the other side is a warm beige (Barharbor Beige), so I wanted something to bridge the gap in this room.





Does anyone remember the Crate and Barrel Dubois Mirrors? They're square, with a beveled edge and an antiqued look to some of the glass? These were my cheap knock-off finds at Michaels one day, mine were $14.99 each, the C&B ones were $150 for 2!! I flanked them with these botanical prints from HomeGoods.

I suck at window treatments. They totally scare me. They are expensive and permanent. When Layla from the Lettered Cottage made her drop cloth drapes, I loved the color and texture of them. Of course, I don't sew, am impatient and don't have alot of extra time on my hands..so instead of buying the drop cloth panels for $9.99 each and turning them into curtains, I just purchased these lineny drapery panels from Target for $19.99 each. Hee, hee.



I didn't want a lot of contrast between the drapes and the wall, I just didn't realize these were going to be the exact same color as the walls when I hung them. Hmmm. The windows in here are a longer story than just this, so I also think this requires another post.



So for now, this is our living room. There's some things I need to work on, some things I want to do, a whole wall I didn't show you because its frankly just too embarrassing:) But at least now you've met.