TOUR MY

Living Room

This became a room that I never tire of looking at!

This WAS a room that I was literally ashamed to welcome guests into, with a couch partially eaten by our former dog Max (we refused to get rid of it until Max finally went to his great reward), and filled with things that didn’t belong.

This particular room has always been difficult because it’s very long and narrow. I’m sure when the house was first built there were two separate rooms, but at some point the wall between the two was removed. We decided to create two separate areas, one by the bay windows just for sitting and another on the other side of the room for TV watching. That gave the overall room purpose and made it easier to style it.

As a result, this room became a place that I never tire of looking at. The warm, earthy colors convey a sense of peace and tranquility. And just wait until you see our gallery wall!

Topics covered here

Overview
Before & Afters
All the Details
Room Views
Features I Love
Shopping Links (separate page)

PROJECT overview

JUST THE FACTS, MAM

WALLS: Behr Premium Plus Ultra Peanut Butter 270F-4 Matte

TRIM: Behr Premium Plus Ultra Timid White PR-W12 Semi-Gloss

CEILING: Glidden Ceiling Paint Goes on Pink, Dries White

Luckily, most of the big ticket items (couches, chairs & rugs) were things we already had but everything else sure did add up.

COST BREAKDOWN

Paint Supplies: $90

Lighting Fixtures: $882

Gallery Wall: $825

Other Wall Art: $71

Decor: $962

Furniture: $2232

Window Treatments: $530

Floor Refinishing: $635

TOTAL: $6237

Money doesn’t grow on trees. So how did we pay for this? Check out my post 6 Ways You Can Finance Your Renovation and I’ll fill you in!

Time to complete: 3 months total, spread between 2015 – 2017

2015 Replaced our old couch with a new (quite awesome) sectional. All 4 chairs are recliners. We also purchased two new rugs.

May ’17 Moved out or disposed of all the items that we no long wanted to keep – coffee tables, chairs, old TV stand. Prepared the room for painting.

June ’17 Painted the walls and trim.

June – July ’17 Planned and built my gallery wall.

July ’17 Made the remaining purchases (see finishing touches below).

Dec ’17 Refinished the hardwood floors.

No issues out of the ordinary on this project!

Click here for Shopping Links (separate page)

This is the very first room that everyone walks into so it makes a statement, one way or another!

The old statement was ‘get through this room as fast as you can.’ The new statement is ‘linger, it’s worth looking around.’
Because this is a room with now two distinctive areas it lets us change things up. Sometimes I just sit by the windows with my tea in the morning, sometimes I sit on the couch by the TV.
This room just makes my heart happy. Every piece, including all the pieces in my gallery wall, have meaning for me.
The colors are very earthy and soothing to me.

paint colors

Paint

tour my living room

WALLS: Behr Premium Plus Ultra Peanut Butter 270F-4 Matte

TRIM: Behr Premium Plus Ultra Timid White PR-W12 Semi-Gloss

CEILING: Glidden Ceiling Paint Goes on Pink, Dries White

project costs

Cost

Luckily, most of the big ticket items (couches, chairs & rugs) were things we already had but everything else sure did add up.

COST BREAKDOWN

Paint Supplies: $90

Lighting Fixtures: $882

Gallery Wall: $825

Other Wall Art: $71

Decor: $962

Furniture: $2232

Window Treatments: $530

Floor Refinishing: $635

TOTAL: $6237

Money doesn’t grow on trees. So how did we pay for this? Check out my post 6 Ways You Can Finance Your Renovation and I’ll fill you in!

project costs

Timing

Time to complete: 3 months total, spread between 2015 – 2017

2015 Replaced our old couch with a new (quite awesome) sectional. All 4 chairs are recliners. We also purchased two new rugs.

May ’17 Moved out or disposed of all the items that we no long wanted to keep – coffee tables, chairs, old TV stand. Prepared the room for painting.

June ’17 Painted the walls and trim.

June – July ’17 Planned and built my gallery wall.

July ’17 Made the remaining purchases (see finishing touches below).

Dec ’17 Refinished the hardwood floors.

project costs

Problems

No issues out of the ordinary on this project!

shopping links

Shopping

Click here for Shopping Links (separate page)

project costs

Improvements

This is the very first room that everyone walks into so it makes a statement, one way or another!

The old statement was ‘get through this room as fast as you can.’ The new statement is ‘linger, it’s worth looking around.’
Because this is a room with now two distinctive areas it lets us change things up. Sometimes I just sit by the windows with my tea in the morning, sometimes I sit on the couch by the TV.
This room just makes my heart happy. Every piece, including all the pieces in my gallery wall, have meaning for me.
The colors are very earthy and soothing to me.

before & AFTERS

What a remarkable difference!

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all the DETAILS

WHAT WE DID AND HOW WE DID IT

I did manage to catch one very grainy ‘before’ picture of one side of the room. With mis-matched furniture and no real style it just looks pretty blah. We started working on this room in 2015.

STEP 1: 2015 – The Start

This was the year we lost our dog Max, so we finally bought a new couch to replace the one he had partially eaten.

We also purchased a couple of rugs and rearranged the room. Luckily, the love seat and two easy chairs from our old set were still in great shape so the latest purchases meant that the big-ticket furniture was in place.

STEP 2: Fast Forward to 2017 – Painted Walls & Trim

We prep’d the room for painting, then re-painted the walls and trim ( Paint colors are listed towards the top of the page).

I actually painted 5 rooms in the house over the course of a month in the summer of 2017. Once I was in a painting mode, I thought it was easier to just keep going and get it all done at once. So the painting in this room happened over the course of around a week.

STEP 3: Planned & Built my Gallery Wall

check out my 8 foot gallery wall

Originally this was one huge empty wall. I had originally intended to place one large canvas here but I couldn’t find one I liked. I started searching on Pinterest for wall ideas, found a few examples of gallery walls and I was smitten. For all the details on how I built the wall and instructions to build your own, click here.

See below for (non-affiliate) shopping links.

STEP 4: Finishing Touches

Here’s everything else we did to make this a beautiful spot:

Added a large industrial 3-unit floor lamp behind the couch and two smaller lamps for the other side of the room.
Purchased a new TV stand. It actually took two tries to get this one right, the first did not work out very well but we love the final selection.
Added a side table in between our old ‘cup chairs.’
Purchased an ottoman and a trunk as coffee table alternatives – read all about it here.
Hung new cotton drapes. We purchased a bay window drapery rod that didn’t quite fit and it took almost a whole day to install it. Curtains in the other windows were a breeze. The shades we’ve had for 20 years and they are in amazingly great shape so we kept them.
In addition to the gallery wall, we added a couple of art pieces to the opposite wall, which I created. They’re available as free printables here!
Added a cute little cabinet by the door to store ‘by the door’ things.
Purchased multiple sets of throw pillows for the big coach, love seat and ‘cup’ chairs.
Decorated the tray for my trunk by the bay windows. Read all about how to style a coffee table tray here.
Added a few other pieces of miscellaneous decor here and there – see shopping links below.

STEP 5: Refinished the Hardwood Floors

The very last thing we did in December 2017 – months after we had actually finished the work in this room, was to refinish the hardwood floors.

This was work that we hired out. Click here to read my post on our floor refinishing projects. There’s lots of information about how we selected a vendor and the entire process.

Roomview

Here’s the finished room, from each of its two sides

features I LOVE

Hover over the images for details (unless you’re on mobile, then tap on the image).

Living Room Couch

I'm not sure a more comfortable couch exists. All four chairs can recline with individual electric controls.

Bay Window

I adore my bay window. Now that it's complete with the linen curtains (I had to hem them, ugh, torture) and my pillow collections it's darn near perfect.