Tag Archives: living room redo

Earlier I showed you the long, drawn-out transformation of my living room.  Now, I’m going to show you what I changed and what is still planned for the space.  I painted built-ins, refinished furniture, bought new chairs and more…I hope you’ll stay with me through this mega-long post!

The Changes

The couch:

Before e-mailing Holly Mathis – the decorating guru — my husband and I decided to keep the couch based on our budget for new furniture. 
Even though it had a small tear on the arm, I did some research and discovered that this could be fixed. Yea!  This wasn’t a cheap couch and to replace it would be more than we wanted to pay right now.  So for a little less than $800 we had the entire thing completely refurbished with new foam for the bottom cushions, new filling for the back cushions, the tear repaired and the entire leather surface was “renewed.”  We are very pleased with the results and feel like we’ll be able to keep it for at least another five years. The couch totally looks brand new!

A Quick Word About Working with a Designer
Now, before I go on about the other changes we made I feel like I need to explain a couple of things about working with Holly.  When I e-mailed her I told her about what I was looking for, what items had to stay, my decorating budget and then I directed her to Pinterest to get a feel for my style. 

What I liked about working with her is that the whole process really was a collaboration.  She didn’t dictate a design and expect me to live with it.  She made a lot of recommendations and we did a lot of back and forth. She would send me links of pictures and I would tell her what I thought.  If I didn’t like it, she’d make another recommendation. I enjoy decorating and I feel like I still got to do that with her.  She led me in the direction I knew I wanted to go and made some recommendations I never would have considered without her expertise.  And, when I trusted her judgement and just went with it, I was always pleased with the results. (I promise, this is not a promo for Holly although I do think she’s great! lol)

So, with that said, here are more of the changes:

Painting the Fireplace and Built-in:

This change was HUGE!  You know I hated that dark oak and I wanted to paint over it so badly but my husband wanted me to strip it and go back to the original. Only probelm was, I didn’t want to.  I didn’t like the oak in the first place.  This was another reason for bringing Holly in.  I needed someone to back up my desire to paint.  And, without even mentioning wanting paint, Holly immediately recommended this. 

At first we talked about painting everything the same ivory color as our trim. I had also planned to rip out the tile on the fireplace and put in something like this:

Oh my.  I loved that fireplace!  I pretty much dreamed about it for a few days.  As I got to thinking about that picture it dawned on me that I could paint the tile and built-in gray and paint the mantel ivory — just the opposite of the M&H picture.  With my dark walls the ivory provides more contrast and makes the fireplace more of a focal point in the room. 

I’m so happy with this I could practically jump up and down!  And, I didn’t have to rip out tile, which — to be honest — scared me a little.

The chairs:

I posted about my quest for one of the chairs here.  Again, Holly made some recommendations but ultimately the choice was mine.  It really helped to have her guidance.  I eventually found the Madison chair from Ethan Allen.  I really like it a lot and feel it’s the perfect fit for the space.

The other two new chairs are the Gabrielle chairs from Pottery Barn. (Which, I just looked on their site and it appears, they no longer carry them).

I just happened upon one of them at my local PB store. It was a floor model they had marked down to make room for new furniture.  I took a picture and e-mailed it to Holly to see what she thought.  We decided that I should grab it and see if it could work in the space.  The store manager was kind enough to let me return it if it wasn’t a fit. 

I brought it home in my handy-dandy mini-van and tried it in all sorts of locations in the room, e-mailing Holly with each option.  We both loved the chair and thought that buying another one to make a pair next to the couch would look great and would solve my additional seating dilemma.

The coffee table:

This is my old coffee table which I never thought I would keep this long!  I paid 10 bucks for it from my neighbor who had been using it in her children’s play room as an art table!  It had craft paint all over it.  I brought it home, stripped and sanded it, stained the top and painted the legs.  At the time I wanted something with a time-worn look that was inexpensive so I wouldn’t freak out when my kids damaged it (as my son had done with our old table using a metal Tonka “digger” with a forked scoop).  Holly saw it and told me I should keep it.  I updated it using Annie Sloan’s Chalk Paint in Aubusson blue and brown wax.  Her inspiration was the dresser in her son’s bedroom — which I totally love by the way!

Piano Wall:

In keeping with the Texas theme I had this star mirror over the piano. 

We agreed it needed to go and I posted it on Craig’s List and practically started a bidding war!  Who knew?!  lol

I swapped it out with these bird prints.  Believe it or not, we already had these un-framed prints which had been sitting in our closet for years. 

My husband’s grandmother was a decorator and received several of these prints from a bank she decorated.  The artist is Ray Harm. My husband inherited the lot when she passed away and they’ve been sitting in our closet ever since.  I found the frames at Michael’s on sale for $8 each so this entire wall display cost around $35 with the tax!  Love that!

Mantle Art:

Holly found the large windowpane piece for the mantle at Wisteria. 

This is the part where I need to tell you that I’m cheap.  When Holly first recommended it, the price tag was somewhere around $300.  That was a tough pill for me to swallow because I have never paid $300 for any decor item in my home with the exception of furniture! 

I drove myself on over to the Wisteria store to look at it and liked it but still couldn’t pull the trigger.  So I sat on it for a few weeks and kept looking at it online.  Then, one day when I went online don’t you know it was marked HALF OFF!  Halleluiah!  You can bet I hustled myself on down to that store ASAP and brought it home.

Pillows:

Holly liked the pillows I already had but still had a few ideas about fabric if I felt motivated to change them.  I decided to keep most of them but freshened things up a little by making a few new ones in these fabrics:

(I have a big thing for checked fabric!)

Candlesticks on Mantle:

I found these Rossini candle holders at Pottery Barn and thought they would be perfect flanking the Wisteria piece.  Didn’t love the price though…$59 each.  But, I got them for a steal because I opened a Pottery Barn credit card prior to my furniture purchase.  You get 10% back in the form of a PB gift certificate to spend in their store.  So I was able to get the candlesticks for around $25 after using my gift certificate.  (I told you I’m cheap!)

I’m still not completely done styling the mantle but figured that can wait until after the holidays because pumpkins and other holiday stuff will soon be taking over. 🙂

What’s Left

The cube ottomans:

Because I splurged on the Ethan Allen chair I decided to do the cube ottomans that Holly recommended as inexpensively as possible.  She originally suggested these burlap cubes.

And, don’t you know they are adorable, but because I’m thinking long-term I was afraid burlap was too trendy.  And, the price was also more than I was willing to pay for trendy ($269 each). 

So, I bought these little ottomans at Target for around $60 each. 

I will recover them myself but again, the cheapskate in me is waiting on this because the fabric — which is this cute chenille window pane called, Tea Time from Lewis & Sheron — is $35/yd.  I wish I could find it for a better price!

I know it’s not the highest priced fabric in the world, but I’d like to pay $20 or less if possible, particularly since a fabric yardage guide told me that I should buy 5 yards to cover these little gems.  I think I can do it in 4 yards but I’m wavering on the amount, so here they sit, undone.

Finish painting the built-in:

I hate to admit it but I still haven’t finished painting the built-in.  The doors that cover the t.v. are sitting in the garage waiting to be completed.  And, if you look closely, you’ll see the little spot above the t.v. where the Dish box sits is not painted inside!

The hubs was traveling when I was painting this and I was scared to unhook all the cords for messing up the Dish, so I left it inside covered up while I painted everything else (he had already taken the t.v. out for me but didn’t take the box out).

Paint the bar stools:

I plan to lighten up these barstools from Costco (my husband’s favorite place!) with some Annie Sloan Chalk Paint.  I was thinking of Country Gray and then recovering the seat in a cute French Grainsack.  They would look something like this:

with a little of this:

or this:

Curtains on windows by the back door:
My husband dislikes curtains, but I think Holly is right by recommending them for these windows at the back of our house in the hall (see her note below in her brainstorm board — it’s a little blurry from my editing).

Basket for fireplace:
Finally, Holly recommended a basket like this for in front of the fireplace.  So cute!  Wouldn’t it look great with some firewood in it? 

So that’s it!  It went from this:

To this!

Thanks for hanging in there with me.  As you can tell, I’m pretty stoked about my living room.  I’ll update again when all these little details come together.

Happy Decorating!