living room

Showing posts with label living room. Show all posts

9.16.2025

The perfect high quality rug solution for a uniquely shaped room!

I have just majorly up-leveled my living room! (I hope I used that term right.) Point is, I have a unique, long, skinny living room in my historic Tudor revival house and there is just no way that a modern standard rug was ever going to be the right size. Back in the day homeowners could order from the Sears & Robuck catalog or other mail order sources to get a custom piece of carpet or linoleum cut to exactly the right size to give a nice border around the room. My parents' 1910 home still had some of these when they bought it, and my 1937 home has very clear lines where the wood floor has discolored from the sun over time around the edge of a perfectly sized floor covering.

But now nowadays, a 10'x14' or 12'x16' rug are about as big as you can get and they are just not the right dimensions… Until now! There is a new way to get incredible quality natural material, fully custom size rugs, down to the inch!

Custom Jute rug for my uniquely shaped living room

I actually started with an 8'x10' rug in this room and just kept slowly getting bigger over the years. Finally we had a 10'x14' which was close-ish to the right width, but there were these two bare floor areas on either side of the couches. I put a small vintage rug on one, but it wasn’t a great look. My kids played so frequently in the other one, near the bookshelf with toys and books and Barbies, and I really wanted something comfortable there for them. Plus, you’ve probably heard this before… a too-small rug makes a room look smaller! Repeat that after me… When your rug is too small, it makes your room look smaller!

7.22.2025

New sofas in the living room!

A couple years ago I finally figured out the right layout for my long skinny living room. Two couches facing each other: simple and classic, but very comfortable, with lots of seating options. Plus an ottoman instead of a coffee table for comfy foot resting, and of course lots of forts and jumping by the kids. But as for the sofa style, I debated for probably a year and a half before I figured out the right combination. Well, they’re finally here and I’m so excited to reveal them!

Thanks to Interior Define for partnering with me on this post.

11.20.2024

Living room update! Rug, sconces, plates, and unique curtains

My living room has been a great canvas the past few years. Living rooms are hard to decorate (there are so many options for what might work) and I've tried a lot of different things. I don't think I'll ever be totally done, but I'm feeling so good about some of these new pieces and think they will last a long time.

Historic Tudor revival house living room update

10.25.2022

Historic home statement front window replacement

One super prominent feature of this home is its long living room with (approx.) 7'x7' window at the front. It lets in tons of sun in the morning (it faces east) and a good amount of light most of the time. It's a great!! But it had a lot of issues. Almost all the windows on my 1937 home are original wood windows, including some leaded glass ones. They are very cool and help the house keep its original character. But this window was failing in several ways.

When we first bought the house this window was on the long list of overwhelming expensive projects/updates, and it fell to near the bottom of the list. But now with two kids and using the space in front of the window for their playmat and climber, and with a lot of other projects crossed off, it felt like it really needed to happen.

Take a look... leaded glass panes including four fins in the middle, which were no longer welded together. At the top someone had tried to secure them with wood and screws, but the glass literally moved when you pushed on it slightly, and rattled in strong wind. There was also a lot of water damage on the sill and floor below. (And cat hair--but hard to dust with the varnish worn off from water damage!)

9.24.2022

Thrifted and vintage gallery wall living room update

We have a long, skinny living room and the wall opposite the front door/entry has always stumped me. We tried the TV there, tried a wall of bookcases (looked so cluttered)... no good solution. Until recently, when I got some new toy storage cabinets. They were really low and needed a big statement something above them, but I'm a little tired of really big art pieces and wanted something cozier.

So I gathered a few pieces of art I already had and started buying coordinating frames at Goodwills. I started with the largest piece and just built outward from there.

I "framed" out the gallery wall even before I had all the art pieces, and had empty frames hanging for a couple months! Even that felt better than the heavy wall of bookcases (we put them in the basement media room now that the basement is almost done).

Then, I had four empty frames I needed to fill and I shopped around some of my favorite sources for original art downloads (I highly recommend the Public Domain Print Shop from A Home Is Announced). I picked out some landscapes and some sketches that worked well with each other and the other art pieces. I printed them at Office Depot on 110 lb paper for about $1 each. Frames at the Goodwills in my area are usually $2-5 each. I would guess the total cost of this wall was about $40!

8.29.2022

Living room update: new custom ottoman, coffee table solution!

I said back at the beginning of the year that a goal for my home was figuring out the living room. I knew it would probably take all year! I've been updating the curtains, creating attractive toy/book storage, moving things around... and the custom ottoman I ordered a while back is here and so wonderful!

This post is sponsored by Wayfair.

Coffee table replacement: upholstered ottoman

I've debated a lot about coffee tables in here and tried a couple out. I love the function and style-ability of a coffee table, but with little kids, we had to just keep it bare all the time and it was sort of a hazard for rough play. There is also already a lot of wood in this room due to the original wood trim. Plus, I like to put my feet up on the coffee table while watching TV and I was always putting a pillow under my heels for padding, ha.

So a while back I decided I wanted something traditional, comfortable, and unique. I found this upholstered ottoman on Wayfair that comes in a ton of beautiful patterns and has charming ball feet. It was perfect! I was able to choose the color of the feet, too. Ah, I love some of those stripes it comes in so much... it was a hard decision! I recommend ordering swatches!

10.25.2021

New rug and vintage sofa in the living room

Living rooms are tricky. I’ve said it before. There are so many options for what you could do in them so there’s no easy formula like there is with a dining room. It’s not even a sure thing that you want a standard size sofa! What about a sectional, or two face sofas facing each other? With most living rooms there are multiple options so it takes a while of living in them and playing around to find what works best.

More than 3 years into living in our home, we are still figuring ours out. We recently upsized our rug (again) to a 10' x14', which really made a big difference, and got a bold statement vintage sofa that is helping me hone in on some more décor I can bring in here.

9.30.2021

Sisal vs. seagrass vs. jute: Banded natural fiber rug comparison, and what's best for little kids!

I have an exciting experiment to share with you! I’ve been wanting to use a natural fiber banded rug in our living room for a while now, but I couldn’t choose between the options for different fibers and wasn’t sure which would be softest and best for our family (with little kids crawling around). I love the traditional, dressed up look these have while still being so natural and adding great texture, plus I have a goal to only use natural fiber (wool, jute, etc.) rugs in my home moving forward. (See my post on my favorite vintage rug source here.) Patterned rugs like vintage aren't for everywhere, but classic natural fiber rugs are so affordable and come in a lot of different sizes. But it’s hard to choose! So I’m breaking it down: I compared six different weaves and fibers of natural fiber banded rugs, and I’m sharing each with you!

These rugs were all provided for me for this comparison from Rugs USA, though this post was not sponsored.

We may also layer a vintage rug over ours, but I wanted a comfortable base for the edges and in case we choose not to!

Jute vs. sisal vs. seagrass: Rug comparison

OK, onto the rugs! These are all available from Rugs USA in a variety of sizes. Most of these are the smallest available, 2‘ x 3‘, which would also be great for a small entryway.

9.03.2021

Tiling our fireplace surround: 2-day project, huge living room update!

I’ve been working on little changes to our living room for the past three years, trying to get it to a place we really love. Living rooms are tricky because there are so many options both in style and function, and you have to play around with both. We’ve moved furniture around, added furniture, moved and mounted the TV, changed art, changed window coverings, changed the massive rug… And I have done some small updates to the original brick fireplace with 1980s brass screen.

Well, I finally gave the fireplace the update it really needed: I added some really beautiful handmade tile. I am in love with it!

Thanks to Pratt + Larson for working with me on this project.

4.14.2021

Colorful living room update and refresh for spring!

Something's gotten into me... I'm all about color these days! Not bright or neon color, but saturated, usually dusty/muted color. Recently I've done color in our upstairs bathroom, Lucy's room (not finished yet but you can see it here), and my pink closet! And now our living room! This latest update is a bold one, and perfect timing for spring.

This post is sponsored by Joss & Main.

I've been wishing for more seating in our living room since we moved in and we've moved it around several different ways, but we're pretty set on how it is now--and it was still short a chair. I've been looking around and decided the perfect thing would be a large, comfy, traditional, velvet armchair. Something rust or pink, maybe English roll arm and with casters and curved feet? I wasn't sure it existed other than going an expensive custom route.

Well, I found basically the perfect thing after shopping Joss & Main accent chairs: the Naomi armchair. It comes in several beautiful colors of velvet and has great traditional lines. (It also comes in a sofa! Great price point on that and looks awesome!)

1.22.2021

Why we decided to mount our TV above the fireplace!!

We've lived in this house 2.5 years now and we've tried several different locations for the TV. You can see the different layouts we've tried for our living room here. It's a long, skinny room with the fireplace on the long wall, and we know we're not the only ones who've struggled with this--when we first walked through the house the previous owners had the TV in front of a window, creating two living areas!

A TV over the fireplace is a common, but not ideal situation in a lot of homes. In fact, it's a home design "don't" for a lot of people. We fought it for a long time because we didn't want to be staring up at it at a steep angle, but... I'll share why we finally mounted our (big, old) TV, and why we're so happy with it!

Our living room is long and narrow, with a the fireplace and two windows on the long wall. There's a huge picture window on the front wall opposite our wall of bookcases.

Pros and cons of the TV above the fireplace

The biggest reason to mount a TV above the fireplace is it creates one, strong focal point. We tried putting our TV on the wall where the bookcases are now, on top of a nice dresser, and it just felt messy. College student-ey. Plus, then it was really, really far away from the couch, which we had with its back to the picture window. Even though it's a big black plastic thing, it's often more elegant to enhance the existing focal point of a fireplace or wall where all the focus already goes than to split it to two locations.

11.23.2020

Versatile modern canvas art DIY/repurposing tutorial

I think this is my fave DIY project of 2020!! Not including our recent bathroom reno, but that's a different category... anyway I recently did this very quick and easy (even for me, with a newborn and toddler) DIY art piece and I LOVE it!!

When I got this leather bench (to add seating and nicely fill this corner by the door), I decided I really had to stop dragging my feet about art for this wall. We have two mirrors in this room, and used to have some small vintage-look oil paintings, so I wanted something that was definitely different. I've seen abstract black and white prints and paintings in decor for years, and this is heavily inspired by... a bunch of them. It's definitely not an original style of art, but it was a fun creative experience doing it, and this exact one is unique!

10.26.2020

Getting the living room ready for the holidays! With extra seating

Our living room is long and skinny. We have a couch and two side chairs, and a playmat for the baby! It's just not enough seating when we have more than a couple people over. We're always pulling in chairs from the dining room or the tiny storage cubes we keep toys in. I'd love a sectional sofa or big chairs, but there's just not enough room!

So I found a great solution. Beautiful, flexible seating that we can use at the entryway and then pull over into the main seating area for company. I'm sharing this update to our living room (plus a cool DIY art piece I just did) and a round-up of other affordable flexible seating pieces I love!

This post is sponsored by Joss & Main.

9.28.2020

Fall home tour and my top 3 tips for decorating for fall!

I am really careful with seasonal decorating since I'm a bit of a minimalist and don't like buying and storing pieces that have limited use. But I do like to get into the spirit of a new season, and I've found three simple tips help me every year!

Sharing some updates we've made to the living room and dining room lately... happy fall!

My top 3 tips for decorating for fall

I keep it simple--but I do make noticeable changes!

1. Add/replace soft pieces.

I've had blue tones in our throw pillows all spring and summer... just switching those to orange/rust and olive green made a huge difference! Also time to add more, chunkier/fuzzier, throw blankets.

7.02.2020

Our fireplace getting closer and closer to living up to its potential: no-wiring sconces!

I've been updating our fireplace little bit by little bit the past two years we've lived here. It's original to our home and I'm not considering any huge changes (see all its iterations here), but it has felt a little plain for the huge, long wall of the living room it stands on.

I debated sconces for a long, long time but finally added some (fully functional, no wiring!) and am very happy with it!

No-wiring sconces on our historic fireplace

I thought about more modern versions because I love our modern dining room light fixture and it might be nice to modernize a bit, but didn't find anything right. Then we got this chandelier for this room, which really added a lot, and I found some simple sconces that were a similar style. Then I just had to commit, and decide where to put them!

These are $70 for a set of two which is pretty hard to pass up. Rather than wire them through our lath and plaster walls, I did the Magic Light Trick (LED puck lights with a remote, affixed inside the sconce). A very similar sconce also comes as a plug-in version.

6.11.2020

Living room update: new layout and rug!

A couple months back I realized I had never "finished" or shared the latest on our living room. I cleaned it up, put some fresh branches on the mantle, and took these photos. But the process made me think about improvements we could still make. This room has evolved over time, not been an all-at-once decor effort like the other rooms we've finished in this house.

I started really questioning some big elements of the room--the layout, for one, and the rug (also huge!)! I still have a few things to tweak, but we've changed those two big elements and are loving it more already!

Note: this post is not sponsored, but I did an Instagram collaboration with Loloi Rugs and they provided me this rug.

Modern traditional living room rug and layout changes

I shared in this post that while the rug we had in here before was really cool, it was too colorful for me with all the warm wood trim and floors in here. It read as pink, which was quite a statement for me and my fear of color. :P

My thoughts were, maybe we should rotate the couch so we don't have such a huge expanse of rug showing (our coffee table is too small/wrong orientation for this loooong, skinny room), OR maybe we should get a new rug so I don't mind seeing so much of it! Well, we did both.

I needed something a little more neutral. I found this one and loved the soft tan/beige and vintage rug look, and few bits of blue in it that pick up on the blue pillows we've had for a while.

3.19.2020

Modern Traditional Tudor Revival Living Room: The definitive living room update post!

I realized (when I looked back at my receipts from last year while doing my taxes--yikes!) that our living room has undergone HUGE changes since 2019! It’s a big room and it has been difficult to decorate, so I would not say that we are 100% done, but it’s welcoming and comfortable--and not embarrassing anymore! I also realized I hadn’t shared any during? after? whatever-I-am-calling-this photos with you to show you around the room, sources, solutions, etc. So here goes!

Modern Traditional Tudor Revival Living Room

3.14.2019

Our new high-end look sofa: Comfort Works skirted slipcover on our IKEA classic!

A couch is a defining feature of a living room... so making this one change recently in ours has had a huge impact!!

We have an IKEA Karlstad 3-seater sofa that I bought on Craigslist in 2013?? for $100. At our last house we got this green velvet slipcover for it and it made the room!! In this house, our living room is already so full of color and character with the warm wood trim and original fireplace... I was ready to calm down the color and try something more neutral.

I also wanted a more classic/modern traditional look, less midcentury. So, I got a custom skirted sofa cover from Comfort Works and... WOW.... it has made me love our living room so much more!!

Comfort Works sent this slipcover for my review! All opinions are my own, I genuinely love their products!

You can see our previous Comfort Works slipcover here, plus in our 500 SF apartment tour while we were house-hunting, and then in this house. It has held up so well and is still that bold, beautiful green and stain-resistant washable velvet! I absolutely love their concept--replacement slipcovers for IKEA and other brands of couches and chairs--and they come in a lot of styles and colors I like. I'm just not ready to replace our Karlstad yet, so I looked at the options for recovering it.

I got quite a few samples from Comfort Works, and compared them based on color in real life plus durability and texture. I definitely recommend ordering samples!

I chose the Karlstad 3 seater sofa covers in Kino Natural fabric in a long skirt style. The Kino fabric is one of their more durable ones, a must since we're getting a lighter-colored sofa and have a baby, cat, and two sometimes messy adults. Plus, the skirt is so fabulous!! Our $100 sofa is looking like a designer one!

10.24.2018

How to paint a brass fireplace screen (without removing it!)

This is one of those projects that I always figured I'd do. We've looked at a million houses and for all the ones with ugly brass screens, I figured I'd get one and paint it black!

So it's actually funny that it's taken me this long to encounter this project and see it through!

I wish I had done this right when we moved in!! But, of course I had other things going on then. Now that it's done I feel so much happier with our historic fireplace!

We had one of these at our last house, too, and instead of painting it, removed the screen entirely. That worked well because it was up a step and we didn't have a baby who will soon be crawling and getting into things. I might still remove the glass/metal/doors on ours one day, because I do like the look of an open one, but for now... this was a great fix and we still have the option of babyproofing.

We did look at removing this one before painting, and it was pretty easy to do at the top (they are bolted on inside), but it was very securely mounted at the bottom. I really didn't want to get stuck with not being able to put it back in. It would have been great to avoid the spray paint fumes inside, but we managed by doing it on a nice day and using big box fans to get the air out.

So this tutorial is now to paint your fireplace screen without removing it--indoors!

2.15.2018

Beautiful Tudor home living room refresh

I recently started offering e-design services, but one of my first clients was actually in-person! A blog reader, this fellow Portlander just purchased her first home with her husband and two small children in a great neighborhood in Portland. It's a beautiful Tudor revival-style home built in 1926 and very well-maintained, but it doesn't fit her style yet and she wanted some help with the living room, library/sunroom, kitchen, and general updates throughout like lighting.

Living Room

Room and goals

The living room is long, with a fireplace on one end and the front door in the middle. The walls are and will remain a pale color, and the original woodwork is painted ivory. Some inspirations for this space included this living room by Joanna Goddard:

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