The Living Room

I probably spend the most time in this room and it’s probably the room I’m most frustrated with. For the most part, I love it. The new bits we’ve done; the fireplace, the shelves, the wall colour, the curtains and my lovely collection of decorative accessories I’ve amassed – I am really happy with. But we’re in an awkward situation at the moment, where we’re trying to pay back all the money we’ve spent so far, rather than spend anymore. So we’re in a weird in-between-y feel with this room, where it could be lovely (and Mother still tells me it is, bless her!) but we’re still stuck with the random bits of collected furniture that don’t really go (and I don’t really like) until we can either afford to go the whole-hog, or decide to move! Whichever comes first!

So I might end this post (or write another one, depending on how long this ends up being!) to include all of my future dream-buys for this room, to complete the look!

Anyway, back to the beginning…

We were able to start using our living room fairly on in the building work – it was treated for damp, and re-plastered within about 4 weeks of moving in, which just left me to sort out the fireplace. Soon, we had the sofas, that we’d bought off our old landlord, out from under the dustsheets. I mean it was hideous, but we sat in here like it was the coolest place in the world. Mostly because we were sick of eating dinner in the spare bedroom and it was way better than the rest of the downstairs;

Relative comfort of the lounge Vs The horror of the dining room!

I’ve already given you a couple of sneaky peeks into this room, with my previous posts on the fireplace and alcove shelving, and really, these two features are the best things about this room, so here’s some before and after shots!

Before – the living room as we moved in – damp treatment and dodgy old ‘fireplace’ in all it’s glory!

After – the new fireplace and bespoke alcove shelving

I painted the room in Dulux Pebble Shore which is a lovely contemporary warm grey colour. It changes colour throughout the day, dependant on the light, and has a really warm feel to it. I knew I wanted to use quite a range of feature colours in here with fabrics lined up for cushions, a throw, and rug, all in a myriad of blues, aqua and taupe-y colours, so the walls needed to be neutral enough to easily sit with it all. We also have quite a few wood tones going on with our mish-mash of collected furniture and plans for a wood floor, so it also needed to be cool enough to tone it all down.

The colour has got just enough pigment to it, that it also looks great offset with the lovely original features of the room; the period skirting boards and deep cornice, both painted white;

We have a wonderful bay window to the front of the house which lets in a lot of light, so this is a great feature too, although currently, it is still somewhat spoilt by the slightly peeling (and sellotaped back on) window film, which was here when we moved in. It gives us much-needed privacy and for whatever reason, I’ve got it in my head that because it makes the front of our house look so skanky, it is probably an excellent burglar deterrent too!

N.B We don’t live in a dodgy area, I’ve just always been irrationally scared of burglars!

I do want to swap this out for some sheer white roller blinds at some point to both help with privacy and stop the glare that we get in this room from about 3pm on a sunny day, but again, for now, the money has run out! On the plus side, we have a great pair of curtains that were one of my first purchases for this room, which we had hung in our bedroom for about a year, while we waited to afford a decent bay window track to hang them on! Ridiculous planning on my part, especially considering my day job. Sorry.

I can’t believe I haven’t had reason to say this before on this blog – and I don’t think I have – but, I love chairs. I mean really love them. I always think a space would be better if there was a chair in it. It drives Husband mad.

Anyway, within the first 6 months of living here, I’d bought/rescued from the tip, 10 whole chairs. And a plant stand that Husband initially thought was a stool, which is almost as bad as another chair in his book.

2 have since been up-cycled and re-sold when I realised they weren’t quite what I wanted, but I think my favourite recent chair purchase is the little occasional chair I have in this room. It was £10 off Gumtree (bargain!) and although it does need re-covering (again, the money ran out for that too!) it is fine with my lovely chevron throw over it for now, and is extremely comfy. I really like the shape and wood tone of the legs and the arms are beautifully rounded – I find myself gripping them like I’m on a roller coaster, but they just feel really nice to hold! I have of course, picked the fabric I would like to have it covered in – Harlequin Cestino 131878 – but I can’t decide whether this is the item to practise my dream of knowing how to re-upholster something on, or to just wait it out and pay someone to do it.

I’ll probably wait.

Other than these things, we are making do for the mean time, so there’s not too much else to talk about. So, here’s a picture of as much of the room I can get in one photo! (How do estate agents do it?!)

Because this room is mostly made up of stuff we have had for a while, I can’t really do a proper shopping list, but if there’s anything that catches your eye, don’t hesitate to pop me a comment and I can try to help! 🙂

…And I think, at just over 1100 words, this is enough for now, so I’ll do another post soon with my inspiration and dream purchases to finish this room off! Thanks, as ever, for reading and I hope this display of the glamorous life of an Interior Designer hasn’t put you off coming back! X