A Room for Living

Our Living Room (After)

We spend a lot of time in our living room. I love to snuggle up during a rainy day with the kids for a movie on the couch with fresh made popcorn. I also love cozying up with my hubby for wine and a movie on Friday night – kind of a date night in!

We also spend a lot of time in this room – reading the paper, books, kids stories and playing board games and uno across the pine coffee table.

If a room gets this much use, I figure you better really love it! Well, now that we’ve done our fireplace, I LOVE everything about the living room.

Here is what this room looked like before:

Living Room: Before

The walls were cream, the fireplace was very 70s and it just needed more of our beachy shabby chic style.

So here is what we did to achieve the look we wanted. We first painted the walls a few years ago with the help of our friends from Hingham Lumber. Since the living room isn’t very large I wanted to go with a light, nearly white. I liked the idea of a hint of pink, like the inside of a shell you find at the beach. We painted the walls in one weekend with Benjamin Moore’s Pink Damask from Hingham Lumber. It always surprises me what a difference paint makes. It really does make rooms look cleaner. We love the color and it matches everything; it really opens up the room.

Before: Living Room (we hadn’t moved in yet)

After: Living Room

Luke and I moved to the States seven years ago and only had 10 boxes to our name. Mostly filled with paperwork, clothes and wedding gifts (the ones we could bring over anyway – our electronics stayed in England). So we’ve accumulated items slowly to create this room. We used our existing couch (that we bought when we first moved over) and put a Pottery Barn unfitted slip cover on it. Then I picked up pillows from Target, Ikea and made my own with the help of a neighbor a few weeks ago. The tan couch is a Pottery Barn one that I picked up on Craigslist two years ago for $100 (original price was $1500). With two young kids and a dog, things can get ruined. I didn’t have the budget or the will to shell out on expensive furniture when it will probably get spilled or peed on. The coffee table was a wonderful find at a local consignment shop only 5 minutes from my house. Interior Consignments is in North Scituate and the owner, Lynne, is such a nice person. The coffee table was $300 and such a great purchase. There is a shelf to store newspapers and magazines, drawers for junk and remotes and plenty of surface area for games. I love the color and the hardware, and really can you beat the price!?! The seagrass rug is from Ikea – cheaper option than Pottery Barn or West Elm. The round pendent light is from Ikea, a modern touch that reminds me of Uni days in Bristol. The flat screen and TV console are new additions as many readers know.

Before: Living Room (L part)

After: Living Room (view of L shape)

The L part of our living room was originally the dining room. It is kind of an odd shape. We use this part of the room for computer time, writing and our ‘kids library’. It also happens to be the area that the Y bike and other ride on toys are ‘parked’. I used the craigslist couch and a wine table with crystal decanters as a console table to divide the space.

My desk is an old library table found at Salvage Chic Antiques. I love the masculine quality and dark wood details juxtaposed with my beach inspired light and drawing of Brandon Hill and Cabot Tower – Bristol. Above the desk hangs an Ikea chandelier, every home needs a bit of sparkle!

Behind the desk is the kids’ book shelf. While I work on the computer the kids are happy to read one of their many books or search the globes. The book shelf was a freebie – my aunt found it being thrown away. Before it was green and peeling – a fresh lick of Benjamin Moore paint – and it is a white glossy home for many an adventure. One of my favorite pieces in the living room is the wooden rocking chair. It is worn and well loved and was my mother’s when she was Conor’s age.

As you can see, our living room is, well, for lack of a better way of putting it; a room we really do live in!

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