Current State of Affairs | The Living Room

You know how experts tell you the best place to look to determine your decorating style is your closet? Well my living room looks a lot like my closet. Full of a lot of stuff that doesn’t belong and, oh yeah, a lot of neutral. So after some years of staring into my closet trying to figure out “who I am” I have finally come to an exciting conclusion.

So as it turns out, it’s not so much that I’m a neutral as it is that I just love a lot of pattern and texture with a little color mixed in.

I think most of the time when someone says, I’m more of a neutral person the other person on the receiving end of that comment immediately thinks – B.O.R.I.N.G. You know, unless they’re more of a neutral person, too in which case they nod knowingly and you share a moment. The truth is though being a neutral does not mean I’m afraid of color or that I don’t I like color. In fact, I like color so much I like to use them all at one time or another. I like to change things up  A lot. In fact, if ‘Change It Up A Lot’ were a decorating style we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But since it’s not here’s how I see it.

I might be a little commitment phobic…

This is my living room from two years ago, just after it had gotten its board and batten makeover. A year later I would decide to repaint the whole area including the foyer and dining room all in one weekend. That was just prior to my near nervous breakdown on choosing the perfect color. This stuff is hard! But thankfully I did finally find the perfect color.

So, just like in my closet it’s nice to have a few great neutral “power”pieces. In a closet that might be pants or a skirt. In your living room that can be your walls or your sofa. Then you dress those power pieces up with a nice scarf, a pair of colorful heels, some accessories and you’ve got yourself quite a winning combo. This is also how I look at my living room these days.

I like to “dress it” in layers. {I think my love of layers may have started with my Rachael haircut in high school} Anyway, I love layers and that’s how I like to decorate, too. So if I take it down to the power pieces like my sofa, walls and maybe a rug – keeping those in neutral – I’m free to change things up anytime I want.

Remember a couple of weeks ago I asked you to help me choose a sofa for our new space? Can you spot the one I went with?

The problem is, once I got it home, I realized it’s a little short to be our main sofa. So what to do now? We all agree that we love it. So we’re thinking two sofas like this layout:

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Our TV is also mounted above our fireplace but because of the room layout it isn’t possible to center two sofas in front of it the way they did here. Bummer.

Yes. Our TV is mounted above our fireplace.

I know.

The cardinal sin of design.

A TV placed above the fireplace. But this is truly the only place for it. I know because we’ve tried everywhere else. And also, it’s our house and that’s where we like it.

The End.

Our opposite wall is much smaller  than our TV/fireplace wall and also it is not lined up evenly with that wall either. The only other “wall” in the living room has windows and french doors. This kind of makes laying it all out, so that there’s good flow, a bit challenging at best.

None of our original furniture (with the exception of the new old sofa) is staying in this room. The playroom stuff will go back in there once the playroom is finished and hopefully that hall tree you see here will find a new home. {P.S. It’s for sale} Oh yeah, and there’s that buffet I didn’t need. It’s not staying in here either. I’ll even be saying goodbye to our diy pallet coffee table.

So let’s pretend for one quick second that the only thing in this room is the new old sofa and the walls….

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And then let’s pretend I’m finally finished with my drop cloth version of these designer curtains (which I’m fairly certain cost about $300 a panel). It’s already looking SO much better in here right?

Now, let’s think about that sofa for a minute. I have children. It’s not staying white. It’s also old so there are germs. So it’s time for reupholstering and I can just imagine how amazing it will look afterwards. I can’t however decide on a color. After looking at 59 pages of possibilities I think I finally narrowed it down to two…

Light gray linen or…

Dark gray linen? Maybe a denim for durability?

I did consider some fun pops of color for the sofa, too but then I thought that might be more fun to do with a chair.

I did make a giant step toward commitment in purchasing this rug today. It’s a bit smaller than the way overused and abused rug we have in there now. It hasn’t arrived yet but I’m pretty sure I love it already.

My only dilemmas are- do I go with two sofas, one smaller, one bigger and a funky chair with ottoman or do I go with a bigger sofa and more chairs. Oh yeah, and then where do I put everything!

You know what I do at times like this? I take EVERYTHING out, slowly add it back in, move it all around until I get it figured it out. What do you do to hit the reset button when you’ve hit a design challenge and what would you do if you were me?