Our living room

Hi guys! We rearranged our Living Room a while ago and while I had updated it on the Tour Our Home link, I thought it might be fun to walk you around the 'new' space and explain some of our changes. 

Then

Now

I really enjoyed the room the way it was before. But as the furniture refinishing business goes, pieces are constantly moving in and out of our home, (a flow which I've noticed my kiddos are completely immune to at this point), and when just one little piece sells and moves on to a new home, sometimes that sparks a complete room re-haul.

This is what you see when you walk through our front door.

The white armchairs define the Living Room space without completely closing off the Dining Room. What I love about an open floor plan is the opportunity for socializing to flow from one space to another. 

This metal table from Target was the only new purchase for the Living Room. I wanted a really airy piece between the chairs to keep an openness between the two rooms.

The antique church pew was a Luckett's Spring Market find this past May! I didn't do a thing to it, (besides clean it). Love the chippy paint revealing the original forest green underneath!

My old college buddy, the wrought iron leg side table. I painted it Old White by Annie Sloan Chalk Paint, and added faded grey stripes in Paris Grey, also by ASCP.

I love me a naked lampshade. Thinking about covering it in chicken wire for more visual interest. I'll get back to you on that... (I spray painted both my table lamps in this room in flat black Rustoleum spray paint).

The old grey cabinet I painted in a custom mixed soft grey and gently distressed.

The big wood and wrought iron coffee table was a Christmas gift from my Matt. He found it at a thrift store while out with our boys last fall! My man sure knows where to shop for me... :) The wooden shelves next to the bench were from a barn sale - a friend found the piece for $5, (and since she had no use for it I was the lucky beneficiary)!

Looking across the room from the Dining Room.

Thank you for stopping by!

~Chelsea

Early Stages of Decorating series: Part 3 - Straight talk about room function

~All pieces available for sale can be found here~

Welcome to week three of my humble decorating series! If you are new or missed the beginning, you can take a few moments to catch up if you'd like: Intro, Part 1, Part 2

At this point in the series you may have a defined idea of your style. Remember, it doesn't have to fall in one genre. Your style may be a pie chart that incorporates multiple elements. Now it's time to get a bit more specific!

Look around your space, mainly 'public' rooms: entrance/foyer, living room, family room, dining room - the places you would invite guests. Think realistically about how you live and how each room would best accommodate that. To borrow a line from Domino: The Book of Decorating, "You may fantasize about a formal living room where you can hold fancy parties, but if a) you don't entertain all that much, and b) you end up with a set up that doesn't accommodate the things you or your family enjoy, like watching movies, then someone's going to be unhappy." (page 16). This is such a great example of why it's so important to be honest about your lifestyle!

And your lifestyle now could change someday. You may dream of fancy entertaining in your living room, but your current lifestyle may not allow you to do so, (young children, full time student with a full time job, etc). Decorate appropriately for your current lifestyle so you can enjoy this stage of life and save ideas for when things change. An example of this for us was when we were furnishing our newly built deck. We talked about doing an outdoor living room of sorts with love seats, comfy chairs, a coffee table, etc. BUT, we really like eating outside with our kids, and our kids are very young, (well, they were when we had this discussion over a year ago). It's a bit easier for our toddlers to sit still and eat when they're in chairs, so we opted for a large table and a bunch of chairs. We still took the time to find the style and colors we wanted and had a blast mixing and matching our own set, (IKEA Falster table in grey, and Roxo chairs in yellow).

Once you've considered the most ideal function of the room, take a good look around at what you've got and just list each item, (big and small), in a notepad, (Domino recommends photographing each item, which is a great idea, just not realistic for me). Then "sort your pictures, (list of items/pieces), into four groups: keep, change (paint, reupholster), give away and sell." (page 17)

We moved into our home with all hand-me-downs which we were so graciously given from friends and family. When I really narrowed in on our style, I realized that not very much of what we had really fit with that. We have a great Craigslist up here in Northern Virginia and I was able to sell every item that wasn't right for us. We had an empty home for a little while, but it was nice to start from scratch with some extra cash in our pockets.....which brings us to one of next weeks  topics of setting a budget, (along with starting the process of buying).

So, we leave off this week with a few tasks:

1)Think about how you live and the best function for your space

2)Make a list of every item in your room(s) from furniture to art and everything in between

3)Keeping your style, lifestyle and ideal function in mind, place each item into one of the following four groups: Keep, Change/Refinish, Give away, Sell

Thank you for reading! I hope this has been fun for you because it's been a great refresher for me!

~Chelsea

Early Stages of Decorating series

~All pieces available for sale can be found here~

I have been wanting to share a home decorating series with you all for a while now, but every time I get close to starting I lose the confidence. The only thing that holds me back is knowing that I am not a natural expert home decorator. I have no education in decorating, no natural eye or gift, and have learned much through trial and error.

I am simply a stay at home Momma who had something of a re-birth after I had my babies and moved into our first home. I did not grow up entirely interested in home decorating, though I had a front row seat watching my own Mom work her magic room by room in our home growing up. There's always been an elevated interest and urge to be creative, however. When we moved here into our first home, all those creative juices just funneled into making our house our own. I poured over books and magazines, keeping a file of ideas and pictures as I collected. There was this whole world of home decorating that I'd never given a single thought to, and all of a sudden I was completely submerged, wanting to learn as much as I could.

The absolute most helpful piece of literature that I actually read cover to cover was Domino, The Book of Decorating. I would recommend anyone just beginning their process of decorating, (or redecorating), to purchase this book for themselves. I'm going to take the month of June to walk through the Getting Started section of the book, as I found that so incredibly helpful, (and still do)! I hope this series can be a useful source for those out there who are just starting out, or perhaps wanting a change and aren't quite sure where or how to begin. While the book is such a great resource, I will also add some tips that I've learned through personal experience which I think compliment the information in the book well.

I still feel a bit nervous about doing this because I know there are so many talented people out there, professional or non, who have a true knack for decorating. To those that do, pay no attention to this humble series. If you are anything like me and just learning as you go, my desire is that this may be helpful to you in some way. It sure was for me!

I'm not sure yet how many posts will be in this series but I am thinking of trying to consolidate to 4 and posting each Monday in June. Seems like a good plan but as life happens, things may be adjusted :)

~Chelsea