Living Room Design Plan

Last week I took you through some of the looks I was pondering for our Dining Room. This week, I am designing our Living Room. If you remember from our home tour, the living room is immediately off of the dining room and kitchen area.

My idea for the living room design centers around the sofa. Here are several of the options I am considering:

1. The Classic Tufted Chesterfield

2. Grey/Blue Velvet English Roll Arm

3. West Elm's Paidge Sofa in Otter

4. West Elm's Paidge Sofa in Navy

For the chairs, I am would like something cozy for fireside sitting but also with more modern lines. Here are the options I am looking into:

1. West Elm's Sweep Chair in Performance Velvet Shadow

2. West Elm's Sweep Chair in Basketweave Flax

 3. ZGallerie's Bobbin Chair

With the narrow layout, I would like to use small ottomans that can be moved around the room in lieu of the standard coffee table. Here are the ones I like best: 

1. Target Brass & Linen Ottoman

2. Leather X-Stool

3. Leather & Metal Bench

For flooring in this narrow space, I would like to layer a natural jute fiber rug with a cowhide rug like this one from World Market.

If you remember from the to do list I made a few weeks back, the room also will need updated light fixtures. Here are two that I really like:

1. Progress Lighting's Traditional Semi-Flush Mount

2. A Twist on the Traditional Semi-Flushmount: The Regan

With the basic elements narrowed down, I was able to come up with a couple of design plans.

Living Design Option #1

Living Design Option #2

Living Design Option #3

Living Design Option #4

Which one do you like best?

One // Two // Three // Four

Adding A Bar to the Living Room

We have made lots of little additions to the living room in the past few months (mantle decor, glass lamps, and the wing chair). This past week I shuffled our tray table into the living room to make better use of an empty corner.

Not only is it decorative, it has been great for hosting! We keep our bar stocked with the essential items for serving our guests delicious drinks. We use smaller sized bottles to fit proportionally on the tray table.

Here is how we stock our bar:

Pelligrino Sparkling Water (love the green glass!)

Belle Meade Whiskey (a Nashville original)

Absolute Vodka

Seagram's Gin (love the color the blue glass bottle adds)

Triple Sec & Bitters for our 2 favorite drinks: Lemon Drop Martinis & Manhattans

and of course the tools...

A Shaker & Measure

This Wine Decanter from West Elm

Cocktail Napkins

What are your favorite items to stock the bar?

Finding the Right Chairs for the Living Room

I may have gotten a touch obsessive about finding living room chairs. I really wanted to find THE PERFECT chairs for our living room. You see, our living room is rather large, but also rather narrow. It is also open on both sides - from the dining room and the front entry. I did not want to block the flow of the room in either direction while also allowing for a conversation style seating and the ability to view the TV. A TALL order!

Toward the Entry

Toward the Dining Room

I used Houzz to find living room arrangements that were like my own, and came up with a plan for how to arrange the room. The original plan was to mount the TV above the fireplace, and have two fireside chairs sittting directly across from the sofa.

Although I really liked these wing chairs that were hauled all the way here from GA!, we were unsure about mounting the TV over the fireplace and felt like the set up did not fully take advantage of the big space in the room. So I went back to the drawing board. I will make a VERY long story short at this point. Around the fourth pair of chairs and a small stent in counseling  I became discouraged, starting to dislike our living room altogether, and generally wanted to give up on finding the perfect chairs.

The Use Whatcha Got Chairs. 

Originally I wanted to recover my existing club chairs 

but I could never find a fabric I loved for both chairs.

Vintage Pair of Craiglist Chairs - 

These barely made it home before I posted them back on Clist because they were too low and too small (although quite adorable)

Cream Club Chairs from Wayfair.com 

These look great but the room became unbalanced on the right side of the fireplace, 

and the chairs were too big to sit side by side.

Pair Floral Chairs from Pier 1

These were returned within an hour of purchasing them for being too blue.

Pair of Henry Bertoia Chairs. 

I thought these would add the perfect Mid-Century vibe, 

but again these were also too small when seated next to our large sofa.

Six pairs of chairs later, I was STILL unsatisfied with the look of the room. Would our living room EVER look right? Would this chair debacle end in terrible tragedy? I was beginning to think so. Until...

I found the perfect living room chairs for 20% off while perusing a local furniture shop.

I felt like Tom Hanks in Cast Away... 

And the living room (and me) lived happily ever after...

LUCKY NUMBER #7:

I hope this encourages all of you when you don't get it right the first time... I don't either!

The story of this room is a long one, but I am so happy to finally have gotten it just right!

Freshening up a Living Room on a Zero Dollar Budget

After finishing Beth's Kitchen (seen here), she got an itch to makeover the living room as well. We are on a strict "use whatcha got" budget for this room overhaul and that is exactly what we did. Beth has great taste, and has done a beautful job collecting accessories over the last few years. In fact, the only things she has purchased for this room are the TV, the sectional sofa (bought second hand), and a few pillows.Other things she has found, collected, or have been gifted to her from family. Her home is testimony to the fact that you don't have to spend a lot to make a place look great!

Here is a little room tour so you can see the space before.

Fireplace Mantle (BEFORE): 

Area by the Front window (BEFORE)

:

Small Desk/Office Area (BEFORE)

Front Entry (BEFORE)

Area behind sofa: (BEFORE)

 As you can see the living room is very open and spacious, which is both a challenge and a blessing. When you have such a large area, it is important to designate a purpose for each portion of the room so it is functional. That is exactly what we did. While the TV watching "zone" remained in the same portion of the room we relocated the actual location of the TV.

BEFORE: TV on mantle

AFTER: 

We relocated the TV to sit on her grandmother's old cedar chest - something we found stashed away in a spare bedroom. The old suitcase belonged to her aunt and provided just the right amount of extra height we needed for the TV. 

With the TV gone - the mantle was now free to be a focal point from the front door (rather than the TV).

View from the front door (BEFORE):

View from the Front Door (AFTER):

The area next to the front door while large, was not funcitonal. We moved her most comfy reading chair from the TV viewing area to the area by the front window to balance out her other reading chair. We also found a retro lamp in the garage to add light. 

Reading area:  (BEFORE)

Reading area: (AFTER)

We pulled a chair from her bedroom into the living room, and closed the table leaves to warm up the entryway.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

The desk area also got a little sprucing..

BEFORE:

AFTER: 

The final look....

BEFORE: 

AFTER: 

This room is Leland approved!

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