I have been sharing bits and pieces of my living room reveal over on my Instagram for a few months now. Now, it’s finally time to get down to all the details on how I transformed this awkward and basic beige living room into a classic yet eclectic and glam stunner! Let me tell you..it has taken me a while to get to this point. This living room has gone through several design iterations and none of them have felt quite right, until now! I have a fine wine taste on a bud light budget, so collecting the absolute perfect pieces for our home can take time. Plus, we have 3 young kiddos so I would like to avoid having a pre mature heart attack as a result of a juice box accident all over my rug. Many of the pieces we have in our home are not going to last us forever – but let me tell you – they look fabulous… they are comfortable…and they are affordable enough to not cry if something is demolished to pieces by my 4 year old tornadoes. Let’s move right along to the  before photos!

Before

This was just a few days after we moved in. The sofa was what we had in our old home and I knew it would be going but it stayed for a while until I was able to select and purchase new furniture. From the very beginning I was not a fan of this paint color – it is Keystone Gray by Sherwin Williams.  However, we have 18 foot ceilings in our living room and I wasn’t up for painting after moving our family of 5. Looking back I should have done this right away. Lesson learned folks!! This was the initial design for our living room. I was trying to work with the color of the walls by just going fairly neutral with slight pops of color. In hindsight, I should have just painted those dang walls. This sectional sofa from Pottery Barn is actually absolutely amazing and I would highly highly recommend. Not only is it beautiful but it is soooo comfortable. We ended up moving it to our basement because it is too large for our living room. I wanted it to work, but our living room just isn’t large enough. This was my backup plan all along and I knew I was testing the waters by ordering it knowing it was too big. Here are my temporary fixes while I was designing my dream living room (knowing those walls were going to finally get painted). I picked up some cheap (yet pretty dang good quality) Ikea furniture to use while I was dreaming and scheming. Followed by a few weeks with the Quinton Chesterfield From World Market (that eventually got moved to our seating room) and some vintage wing back chairs that I scored off Facebook Marketplace (that I couldn’t say no to so did the whole “let’s scoop them up now and figure out the details later” thing)

Mood Board

Behind the scenes during these many transformations I was scheming up my dream living room. As I mentioned before, when you are designing on a dime it can take some time. Hey that rhymes! I am so SO much more decisive when it comes to client projects. My own home…I am all over the place. My brain is constantly dreaming up new design ideas so sticking to one and implementing it in my own home can be tough. After about 2,472,983 mood board iterations this was finally the one. I am obsessed with the vintage yet glam vibes that it gives me plus the mix of colors and patterns. Ugh. Just every single thing about it speaks my love language. As you can see I incorporated some elements from my breakfast nook design since the living room is open to our kitchen and dining room and I needed them to flow cohesively. If you missed my breakfast nook transformation you can read all about that HERE and HERE.

After

Furniture Selections

Sofa

I knew that I wanted a black velvet sofa in our living room. I legit searched for a 110″ -ish long black velvet sofa that had a low back and gold metal legs for days. And when I say days, I mean days. So I can confidently say that I have seen them all in the $1,000 – $2,000 price range. Yes, you heard that right. This 110″ black velvet chaise sofa was less than $2,000!! In fact, it was less than $1,500! It also comes in navy, cream, gray and pink and has interchangeable gold or silver metal legs. This thing is so chic! It is on the more firm side so keep that into consideration if purchasing, but it breaks in quickly and you can always switch out some of the filling for a softer down filling (which I still might do eventually).

Accent Chair

Pairing black with white is one of my favorites. It is a classic look that also pairs well with literally any and all colors, which is perfect for this design crazed designer who is always mixing things up. Keeping my furniture elements on the neutral side ensured that they would last the test of time against any other changes I might make down the line in terms of accessories. Pro tip: If you are scared of color – keep your large ticket items neutral and play with the other elements in the room such as throw pillows, rugs and curtains! Back to our accent chair. This OSP Home Furnishings Tufted chair from Overstock is down right fabulous. The color is a slight off white which actually pairs perfectly with our rug (more on that in a bit). And the nickle nail heads along the side and back add such texture and sophistication. I can’t even. This chair also comes in an aqua and a mauvy pink (which I had a hard time saying no). I ended up using my favorite gold spray paint on the legs because I wasn’t a huge fan of the walnut finish. I love how there is so much coziness and texture in this little nook of our living room.  

Accessory Selections

Rug

This Safavieh rug was the first thing I selected after deciding I for sure wanted to have a black velvet sofa. Rugs are the perfect accessory to pull in all the colors you want in your room. When people ask me how I mix colors and patterns, my answer is fairly simple. Find a piece (such a rug) that incorporates all the beautiful colors you want and then sprinkle those colors throughout the space. This rug had the black, pink, and the blue that were a must for me (my faves). This rug is bold, but so so fun. Don’t be scared of fun rugs my friends! Just look at the difference in makes in our living room!

Throw Pillows

Throw pillows don’t have to be complicated. If you are struggling to make your throw pillows cohesive check out this blog post I wrote for a dear friend, Morgan, who owns Construction2Style. If you know me – you know I can’t go more than 10 feet without incorporating some sort of leopard print. So, of course a leopard print throw pillow was a must. This one is from Nelle Company and the black piping on it takes it to the next level. Mixing leopard print with a whimsical design is one of my favs. I decided to use one of my favorite Schumacher fabrics as my whimsical print. Chloe and Olive (where this throw pillow is from) is one of my favorite Etsy shops. They have many other Schumacher fabric throw pillows, which make it easy for anyone to obtain this coveted print (that is usually just sold to the trade). I then chose a solid light blue velvet throw pillow to tie in with the light blue in the rug (and lamp). The key with mixing patterns….add in a solid! Shop Little Designs Co is another one of my absolute favorite Etsy Shops and place to purchase throw pillows for my client’s. The quality is impeccable. Trust me – invest in good throw pillows. You will not be disappointed.

Lamp

You would think it would be semi – easy finding an affordable light blue lamp with this  curved shape. Nope. So definitely wanted to share this gem with you all. It is so affordable and the scale of it is just right for a living room. Anyone else a fan of the over sized table lamps!?

Side Table

This elephant faux wood side table was a last minute score. My husband and I traveled to South Africa in January of 2020 and I left a piece of my heart with the elephants (and all of the animals). Finding furniture and decor accents that speak to your heart and soul are so important when designing. They are the pieces that truly give your designs life! This table is meant to be an outdoor table but I am all about multi-functional design!!

Coffee Table

A vintage marble top coffee table was what I really wanted in here. Maybe eventually I will find one during one of my Facebook Marketplace hunts. Speaking of Marketplace, I recently shared how I score the good finds – you can check that out HERE. I instead opted for a gold, brass and mirror beauty. The way the room and light reflects off that mirror insert is so dang good. Now, in full transparency – this coffee table is a little wobbly. I’m not sure if I received a slightly defective one, or if it just how it is manufactured. It is not a deal breaker – but giving you a fair warning. 🙂

Decor/Accessories

I am linking to several of my favorite decor and accessory pieces that I used in this space. Yall, this “Hermes” blanket is from Amazon for less than a hundred bucks. Now, I have never owned the real deal to compare the two – but this one is dang good and I highly recommend. It adds such a high end and chic look to the room. YES!

Custom Sheer Drapes

One design element I was almost certain I would be dropping the big bucks on would be custom drapes. Custom drapes are not super budget friendly (worth it 1,000,000,000 percent). But, they weren’t in the budget for this room. I was searching through Etsy like I always do – because it’s just amazing, and I came across these 18′ custom sheer drapes and I about fell off my chair. They are absolutely perfect and well within my budget I had set aside for draperies!! I ordered a few samples and quickly ordered them in the off white color.       In case you forgot what this window wall looked like before we painted and added the sheer drapes….  

Paint

I agonized over paint colors as I knew this was going to be a huuuge project to complete (….18″ ceilings + 8 windows to paint around). Our living room is an east facing room which provides a beautiful natural glow in the morning, but by noon there can be lots of shade (gray and flat colors). Because of this I wanted to avoid a cool white color. Chantilly Lace was automatically out (even though it is one of my favs). I wrote up an entire blog post about the best white paint colors if you are interested in learning more about this. I decided to go with Alabaster by Sherwin Williams because although it is a warm white it does not read yellow, especially with lots of natural light.

Bookshelves

I used the color Greenblack by Sherwin Williams to paint our built in bookcases. We actually DIY’ed these built ins using Ikea Billy Bookshelves! I have yet to complete a tutorial on this – so that is yet to come 🙂 I love how the Greenblack contrasts against the Alabaster. Delicious!

Future Fireplace Project

Next (and final) on the agenda for this living room is what to do with this dang fireplace. Most would say, “well why didn’t you paint it when you had your house torn apart and scaffolding set up.” The truth is I wasn’t prepared with exactly what I wanted to do and didn’t want to just wing it. That could end up with an even bigger disaster. Plus, as the walls were becoming light and bright this eyesore stone was not bothering me as much! However, I do plan to take this on in the future and have a few ideas narrowed down. Should I tile below the mantle with the same Riad Tile we will be installing (soon) as our kitchen backsplash and then white wash the rest of it, should I white wash the entire thing or “overgrout it”, or should I take the whole thing down and reinvent it ground up (prob not happening)??

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