The living room attached to the kitchen in our new house was a big selling point for our family. Although it’s an odd shape, it gets an insane amount of natural light and it’s the perfect place for Amalia to play while I’m cooking breakfast or dinner. It’s a wonderful space to entertain adults as kids play in the play area attached to it. It is really perfect for our family. But we’ve been in our house for 5 months and only just got furniture so we’re finally able to enjoy it to the fullest for the first time.
We wanted to take our time making design decisions here and I’m really glad that we did because I’m very into how it’s turning out. Ultimately we decided to go with this layout for entertaining but also because the swivel chairs can be faced this way for a conversation or turned towards the fire for when Anel and I just want to have a glass of wine on a cozy night at home.
The sofas are covered in both performance fabric and performance piping from Society Social. I’ve already had to clean both coffee and mud off of them and had no problem! If you’re going for a light color like this, performance fabric is the only way to go.
Today I wanted to show you where we are today in the design process and what’s coming up! This might look like it’s close to done but we have some major updates that will totally change the feel of this room in the coming months.
I shot the room as it was this week, with Amalia’s toys on the chair and Boots in his little set up so you can see how we actually use it.
Here are our plans for the living room!
Walls: I originally wanted to do this patterned grasscloth wallpaper on the walls to add texture and a little excitement, but after talking it to death with Anel, we both agreed that in the long-run we might not like that down the line. Investing in wallpaper and installation is expensive, especially because we want to cover not only this space but Amalia’s play space connected to it. Not to mention we have the shiplap ceiling and white brick so all three of those patterns felt like too much for the room.
Instead, I think we’re going to go darker with paint as suggested by Dana from The Finish. This room is really bright and sunny, even on the cloudiest of days. When we took these photos, it was raining and gray outside and it’s almost impossible to take a good pic on a sunny day because the light pours in so strongly. I love it so much, but it does feel very white and almost sterile because of that. A darker navy wall (not too dark!) would be so cool and make such a statement here. We’re not 100% sold on that but we’re getting paint and fabric samples (for the windows) to see how we feel.
Window Treatments: Our picture window is huge, so our window treatments are going to make a huge statement. We’re taking our time picking the perfect fabric for them because it’s going to almost be like a piece of art. We are going to have a cornice and drapes installed on the picture window and leave the skylight and the random square window near the ceiling as they are. These window treatments are a perfect place to bring in more color, pulling from the art or the orange pillows. Stay tuned on fabric ideas for that coming soon.
Pillows: We love the orange pillows we had in our old sunroom and used them again here. We only have 3 so I put two on the bigger sofa and just threw some Caitlin Wilson pillows on the smaller one. I love the pink throw pillows but not for this room so we might have more of the orange ones made or do a mix and match with something else depending on the window fabric.
Rug: Despite our plans for the walls and window, I still want the room to have a classic beachy feel so we really wanted a natural rug, similar to the sisal one we have now but in the right size. Finding a rug to fit this space has been a challenge, so we decided to go the custom route in an indoor/outdoor fabric (that looks like jute) because it will fit the room perfectly and last, hopefully, for many years.
Mirrors: The two mirrors on the wall will be coming down. The window treatment will extend past the window and that will be like the “art” on that wall. Right now they’re up because we have two giant holes in the wall where there were sconces before.
Fireplace: This wall is the bane of my existence in this room. We use our fireplace daily and love having one, but the design of it is not great. The off-center white brick looks very mid-century but not in a good way. So we’re installing white shelves to the right, where we can display knick-knacks and family photos in a stylized way. Having that there will make the fireplace location feel like it makes more sense.
Below the shelves, there will be room for firewood and the wood will become part of the design and it will also be functional. I’m very excited to see how this is going to turn out!
Above the mantle, we’re going to get a really cool mirror. We went back and forth about putting a Samsung Frame TV here but ultimately decided against it because we want this room to be about connection and family time, and not electronics.
Bootsie’s Chair: You can see in the photos below that Bootsie lives on the striped chair near the fireplace (also custom Society Social from years ago!). Even though we could definitely use this space in a better way visually, we’re going to keep the chair for Boots and just get a new blanket that matches the room a little better so he can have his space. When we’re not home, he sits there and looks out the window, and if we take it away, he’ll sit on our couch so we’re stuck with it!
Details: We will be adding another lamp to the other side table and keeping the coffee table totally clear except for the one ginger jar because we use it to play games with Amalia and it’s low enough that she could knock anything over.
Society Social Quinn Sofa 88″
Society Social Quinn Sofa 75″
Society Social Stevie Swivel Chairs in Les Touches Blue Fabric
Serena & Lily Grasscloth Coffee Table (gifted)
Serena & Lily Grasscloth Side Tables
Kerri Rosenthal Custom Artwork (gifted)
Port 68 Table Lamp
Chappywrap Blanket
Caitlin Wilson Pink Throw Pillows
Custom Orange Throw Pillows (now on Etsy!)
Old Pottery Barn Sisal Rug
Etsy Mantle
CB2 Fireplace Screen
Wisteria Mirrors
Photos by Julia Dags.
It’s looking good! I love the orange accent color. I think you need to mix up the tables a little bit – keep the coffee table and put a larger round table in the back left corner (between the couch and loveseat). The room could use a darker color to ground it.
I would recommend a woven wood shade on the picture window flanked by the curtains. You need more natural texture in the room to ground it.
Julia, Looks great! I wanted to find out what color mantle did you choose? The link didn’t work.
Many thanks,
Monica
Excited to see your home come together! I saw you’re using The Finish and @mollypattondesign. How do they interact? How has your experience been with each? Are you not working with Prudence for this room?