Settle in, this is a long post, describing every tip and trick I've used so far to make over my living room as inexpensively as possible. Get a coffee. Better yet, a pumpkin latte.
This is what goes on around here pretty much once or twice a year. And because I am extremely psychic (everybody says so) I'm going to predict that this is what goes on in your house too.
I declare the house a disaster and start doing what I *think* is decluttering, but is really just moving things from the one room into another room until the cluttery room becomes decluttered and the other room (which was decluttered) becomes cluttery. Understand?
On and on this goes in a never ending carousel of cluttering and uncluttering the same rooms. Room to room, room to basement, basement to room, room to closet. And repeat.
See? Psychic. I'm still working on bending spoons with my mind (mainly so I can evolve the trick into moving spoons into the dishwasher with my mind.)
A couple of months ago I started the process of making over the lower floor of my house, including the foyer, living room and dining room, with just paint and rearranging furniture. I might have to buy and sell a couple of things, but basically I decided to change as much as I could with what I had.
The above photo is the before shot believe it or not. I know. It looks pretty good. But the shag carpet from Costco was a disgusting, flattened, haggy mess. Not shaggy ... haggy. It lost it's shag about 2 years ago.
There were maybe 12 too many lamps in the room. Living in an old house with little to no overhead lights gives you an unnatural affinity and need for lamps. In this small living room I had 8 lamps. EIGHT.
The side panel curtains were cheap, like really cheap, and I got them when I first made over my house. They almost matched the couch, but not quite. But for $16.99, almost was fantastic! As you can see they're a curious shade of rose/taupe.
I've never liked that coffee table (which yes I got on sale) but it fits the space perfectly. That table is pretty but it ain't got no soul. Even though I'd love to have a huge square coffee table the room just won't allow it. Because the room is a jerk. So I've kept the coffee table.
The couch? I'd love to replace it with something a little less puffy but for now it stays. In the back of my mind I have something either a bit more country or a velvet or leather Chesterfield sofa. Probably in sectional format because again, it's what works best in my jerk of a room.
I still love the idea of the gallery wall but these prints were every single thing I could find in my basement, most of them not even framed properly. They weren't necessarily artwork I loved. Just stuff. That happened to look fairy good when grouped together.
So with all that in mind, my new decluttered living room. The makeover is not complete, the canvas has been cleaned up a bit, waiting for some fresh, new brush strokes. It may take a month, it may take a year, but it is on its way to completion.
I know. It looks empty. And naked. And almost the same. Don't be alarmed. It's because it's missing the number one most important ingredient to successfully decorating; layering. That's what the new brush strokes on the room will do. They'll add layers which is what makes a "nice" room a "jawdropping" room.
Take a look at one of my inspiration shots from Ellen Degeneres' home.
There's layering. Different colours, textures, styles and periods. There are interesting pieces and billion dollar Hermes blankets (substitute with Hudson's Bay blankets my Canadian friends), flea market finds. It. Is. A. Layered. Room.
So don't worry (as if you are), I'm going to get that layered look again, it just might take a while to get it the way I want it.
So what have I done?
I got rid of the rug. I threw the damn rug out. I may never even get another rug. My living room looks kind of bald in the photograph, but in real life it looks clean and calm without another element to busy it up.
Don't worry. I'll mess and clutter it all up as soon as I declutter my dining room.
I have scaled down the number of lamps from a whopping 8 to a paltry 7. I know. Living by the light of 7 lamps. I feel like a bat.
As you might know, I painted the trim. You couldn't see a lot of the trim in the living room because of the rose/taupe drapes, but now that they're down you can see the architecture of the woodwork. There are a few different directions I could go in terms of window treatments (more on that further down in the post) but for now I'm still getting a thrill out of looking at the naked painted trim.
So far we've ascertained that my new living room is batty, bald and naked.
I've kept my 3 favourite prints up on the walls and I'm going to get the Picasso on the right, properly framed. As it is now, it's just sitting in a gold frame. As in, just set on the edge of the inner lip of the gold frame, not even inside of it.
I was considering getting it set into a much bigger frame so it would take up more wall space and be more dramatic, but from my Photoshopped version of it below, I feel like it would draw all the attention to the frame and not the Picasso. I keep saying Picasso as if it isn't just a print from the 60's that my Uncle bought at a carnival. I think it was a carnival anyway. I have no idea why I think that, but since I'm psychic, I think you can believe me.
I might paint that table too, I haven't decided. Not the little ends of cut wood, just the surrounding veneer.
The other end of the room holds the corner you don't often (if ever) see on this blog. Why? Because for the first few years of this blog I STILL had a Fred Flintstone sized television taking up the entire corner. Yes I did. I didn't want to show it off and make you all feel jealous.
Then I had my famous furry chair there, but it never looked very good there either. Loved the chair, but the corner was always icky and I couldn't get it right for the life of me.
Which corner? This corner.
It's right now.
That's a settee that I've owned for years. For a few years it was classing up my mother's garage, but a couple of years ago I brought it back home and put it in my foyer. Where it didn't really fit.
I love it with all of my heart in the living room, but it's not going to be able to stay there. Why? It isn't what you'd call curl up comfortable. It's not uncomfortable, it just isn't the kind of thing you're likely to fall asleep on while holding a book, a string of saliva reaching from your mouth to a puddle of drool on the floor. I like things to look pretty but I LOVE things to be useful and comfortable.
Am I right?
Part of what I love about the look of the settee in the room are the different materials used in it like the caning and wood frame and the interesting shape of it. It's not just a big lump of fabric in the corner. So it may take me a while to find something that has the look I want with the comfort I need.
Part of the mini-makeover included a COMPLETE overhaul on my bookshelves. Since I've installed an entire 3 walls of bookcases in my dining room I could take some of the books out of the living room bookcases and put things I love in there with a bit of space around them so you can actually see them.
I removed the 2 rectangular Homesense (Homegoods) lamps on my sofa table and replaced them with the one lamp that I've always loved. It wasn't a cheap lamp but I still love this Crate & Barrel Cleo lamp 10 years after buying it. Plus they're still selling it and it's gone up in price so basically it's an investment. I think.
The Cleo lamp has moved and for now the rest of the sofa table behind the couch is empty. Until I find things I really want there other than my favourite wood carved Buddha.
Rearranging things also gave me the chance to change up another corner you don't see a lot of, in behind my couch.
As you can see I haven't yet dealt with the squirrel's nest of cords at the bottom of my dresser but I'll get to it.
Actually one of the things that took the MOST time in this room and had the biggest impact was rerunning and concealing cords, especially the ones around the fireplace that run the television, speakers and turntable.
You can see at the top of my bookcases there are 2 speakers, one on either side. There are another 4 speakers (and their stupid wires) around the room. It was my mission to hide them all. Part of what makes a room look messy are wires everywhere. But when you live in an old house with plaster walls, running wires through walls isn't so easy.
So after living with wire nests everywhere for 17 years I did my best to hide them. This included painting them and using finishing nails and 2 way tape to conceal them in existing trim. Like on the fireplace.
And no. I didn't paint my fireplace black. Yet.
This wire wasn't quite long enough to run where I wanted it to, so I had to hammer in a staple to hold it in place. But I have glued, yes GLUED this wire to my fireplace trim. You notice it here obviously because I'm pointing it out and it's a close up shot, but in real life you don't notice the painted wires at ALL. Doing this will neaten up any room. Just painting your wires the colour of whatever it is they're sitting against or on top of.
I also drilled holes through the floor down to my basement so I could run my television cable in behind my bookcases.
I still have some wires to deal with as you can see down by my baseboard. These I'll paint, bind together and then attach them to the baseboard so they just blendish in.
The lamp on this table (which replaces the Crate & Barrel lamp that was there) used to be on the blue dresser.
Finally, to help hide wires I even drilled into my bookcases to run wires down and inside of the bookcase instead of over them which makes them much less noticeable. I pulled the lamp forward a bit here so you could see what I'd done better.
O.K., if anyone needs to go to the bathroom or give their legs a stretch now's the time. You can have one little break and then we'll talk about the window treatment options.
Here we go.
To the right we have my old rose/taupe curtain panels. To the left, nothing at all.
I could throw caution to the wind and have nothing on my windows at all but since this isn't a Frank Lloyd Wright home and I'm not living in the middle of nowhere, I'll probably opt for some sort of window covering.
My first instinct was to just switch out the rose/taupe side panels for white ones so everything just sort of disappeared, but then I thought ... what if I tried the opposite? What if I tried dark grey, almost black?
And I love it.
But maybe I should just try the white, just in case.
And I love it.
But maybe I should think about recessed interior shutters (on the left, below) and painting the cold, chrome coffee table (on the left and right, below) black.
And I love it. I really like it all.
Interior, wood, Shaker style shutters would be appropriate for the age of my house (1840) plus Shaker style compliments another love of mine, Mid-Century Modern.
Needless to say I haven't got anywhere with the whole window treatment thing. I'm in that decorating stage known as frozen.
For a quick 1-2 month mini-makeover I'm happy with it. The living room is the room that's going through the smallest transformation of my 3 rooms because it was pretty good as it was. Plus, because I didn't buy anything, and just cleaned everything up, I feel like now I can slowly, as time and money permit, layer the room up until it's perfect.
Or in layman's terms, clutter it up until it's perfect.
Jane Hill
Shutters, not curtains. And take that tutu off the settee!
Karen
Ha! And if I'd shown it without the tutu, you'd be saying COVER THAT ROSE VELVET SETTE UP WITH A TUTU! ~ karen!
Ellen in Illinois
Slipcovering your sectional in white with a skirt to the floor would ground the room.
Jan
LOL well it's obvious I'm in the minority when it comes to a love of some color on walls, and it certainly does simplify the task of a redecorate.
Karen
You probably also love colour in your clothing Jan! I do not. I wear mainly black, white and grey. Sometimes red and/or pink. I'm betting your like to decorate the way you like to dress. And as it turns out, white from head to toe is my favourite thing to wear. ;) ~ karen!
Jan
Perhaps odd, but I'm a black t shirt/blue jeans or black blouse/fancy skirt kind of woman. I don't dress flashy at all. Maybe my house is my alter ego? Plagiarizing a decorator from a long ago article: my living room is very dramatic at night and looks like a French whore in the morning LOL!
Karen
LOLOL. Love that! ~ karen
Elaine
Oh gosh! You made me laugh, Jan, with "French whore"!! I've never seen one; can I come over and see her? I live nearby - down in the Valley! So funny.
Jan
hahaha I've never seen one either. Don't bump into many down here in NC! Just seemed to fit.
Elaine
Oh boy, did I ever mess up! I thought you lived in Waterdown, Ontario, Jan! (Not North Carolina!) - love the Carolinas - vacationed every year down your way for over 40 years.
Jan
LOL Yes we see quite a few of your countrymen down here in shorts and sandals when we're still in longjohns and sweaters LOL! There are more "Jans" here than you can shake a stick at! Perhaps we all have discerning tastes.
Jan in Waterdown
Hah! Discerning taste? Why thank you!
And who's shaking a stick at us Jans?
Jan
Why just this morning my dog was shaking a stick at me. Nearly took me out as he ran past LOL!
Jan
Love so much about your home, including the many modern elements contrasting with old house architecture and fittings. HOWEVER, I'm sick sick sick of white walls! (and ceilings) Not just yours, but every one I see everywhere! When will this embrace of non-color end!?
Karen
Well, I can't speak for anyone else but I don't plan to give up my white walls anytime soon. I've had them for 10 years and still want and love them. ~ karen!
Jen
My next sofa purchase will be a leather chesterfield sofa too. I love the classic shape, the fact that it's comfortable, and also that it won't show fur.
Jody
Love it! Without the rug the floors are seen and can be appreciated for their age and patina. Did you redo the floors? If I remember you did a post awhile ago about sanding the floors or was that upstairs? Also like the shutters best to keep the trim visible.
I look at my living room and want to redo it. Paint it, move furniture around, get more lighting.
Susi
No, it's true, you are psychic. When I got the spring restoration hardware catalog and saw that beam sectional I thought it could be done as a diy. Boom! You diyed it! Now im thinking YOUR favorite really is the shutters. Because, hi, so pretty. Also, they're super costly and I know you'll discover a genius trick that I haven't been able to figure out yet. Becase it's what I want too. Looking forward to your post on affordable and/or diy interior shutters!
Mia
Another vote for shutters. In cold weather add color/patterned side panels, hung wider so show off the trim, unless closed for temperature control of course. Adds to the layering effect you want.
janpartist
As an artist my only suggestion would be regarding the 2 pictures on the left of the window. The large (etching?) on the top should be switched with the smaller painting below it. Smaller paintings should hang above larger ones-otherwise the ones on the top are too visually heavy. Way to go hiding cords-great job!
Karen
Oh God, those are literally just thrown there Jan, lol. I agree they're just sort of stupid looking. I maybe should have really emphasized more that this is not the finished look, lol. ~ karen!
Evalyn
All I can say is "taller lamps." You have some really cute, itty bitty, doll house sized lamps. I would get a couple that go up at least half the height of the walls, or maybe two-thirds of the way. Add some height, lead the eye up.
Karen
LOL, well I'm not sure how itty bitty they look in the photographs, but I can assure you they aren't itty bitty. Taller lamps wouldn't work in this particular room. I have some very eccentric, beautiful midcentury modern lamps that are very tall and I've tried them a thousand times in this room. They don't work. ~ karen!
Amber
Great start!
Funny....in some other post of yours I noticed what looked to be rose, not rosy taupe drapes in the background & admired them. Perhaps the color was tweaked when editing the photo or it's my screen- who knows....
I'm not a pink kinda girl per se, but using a true blush or rosy hue in decor these days can seem a bit daring, especially in an eclectic room with au natural/earthy & rustic/refined elements.
I dare you to consider committing to light rose drapery panels, maybe even velvety rose & lucite or acrylic window hardware. It'll look great especially once the fireplace is black.
Although they might fight a bit w/the green dresser. Hmmmmm
I'll stay tuned!!! Enjoy the journey ?
Amber
Or roman shades!
Karen
LOL. I like the lucite hardware and even a pink hued curtain. Just not in this room. I want to bring out the masculine as opposed to the feminine and a more comfortable, flop down feeling. It's very difficult to properly flop with pink and lucite. ~ karen!
Amber
True that lol!
Kelly
I was going to say I love the bare floor and the white curtains add the bit of softness so a rug isn't needed but if bringing out the masculine is the end goal, what about the shutters in dark grey?
Karen
It's a possibility! :) ~ karen!
Jebber jay
Hello ... i have never given any input other than "smarty pants nonsense" comments. I'm graduating to posting an actual opinion and will celebrate with a graduation pastry later. For blinds, I concur that bottom-up top-down blinds would be smashing. I had those in my previous place and they are sleek and versatile. Privacy with sunshine = win win. If you go for panel curtains, I think they would look better if you hung them wider than the window. That will make the long skinny window look more substantial. It would also make the curtains look nicer when open (more curtain to see, less thin). And one final opinion because i want another pastry .. the dark curtains look great. Nice to have some depth of tone. :-)
SuzanneLH
How about inset, white linen Roman shades for the window? Trim still visible, but you won't freeze in winter drafts.
Beth W.
Just in case you're still couch shopping...
http://www.pier1.com/colette-sandshell-crushed-velvet-sofa/2982607.html?cgid=sofas#nav=top&start=1
Good luck with the ongoing de-clutter/re-clutter! Love the shutter idea :)
Edith
Hi Karen,
Great job on hiding the wires!
I really like the idea of gray drapes. When you push them apart they will frame your window nicely and cozyfy the space. I love the color combination of your wood floor / gray / white / chrome table. It strikes me as a very sophisticated palette.
Jennie Lee
Okay, here's my 2 cents worth. I like the light colors in your room. I don't like the dark ottoman, nor do I like the idea of dark curtains, table, or fireplace. I'd advise light blinds of some kind. And the table is the only silver-colored thing in the room. I never would have believed I'd say this, but paint the frame of the table gold. And lower your cuckoo clock (unless the weights make that impossible). Please feel free to ignore everything I said.
Karen
Hi Jennie Lee! Well, I'm going to say no to all of your 2 cents, lol. The dark ottoman stays, dark curtains are a definite possibility and the black table is happening, probably today. Rooms need hits of black. If you take a look at a magazine even rooms that appear to be all white have elements of black in them to ground them. The cuckoo clock does need to stay there because of the weights, but I also like the look of it way up high, slightly disconnected from the dresser below. I like the idea of the table being gold, but I really need the grounding of the black. ~ karen!
Jennie Lee
I knew you'd say that. For that matter, even though my living room has a sea green/aqua/white/pale wood thing going on, there ARE lots of black bits in it, too: black picture frames, black shelves, 4 black matching lamps, a black & gold Buddha's hand, and the usual black audio/video equipment. But other than the TV, all the black things are small, or thin.
Sue
How about top down, bottom up shades? Several years ago, I changed my country style living room to mid century modern. Replaced all curtains with these shades! They can even be purchased without the hanging pull strings.
Mary W
Your Mom's settee is so nice to look at - too bad it's not comfortable. I vote for the black drapes since it goes so well with the art wall treatment. I vote for the white drapes since they look uplifting, clean and fit the feel of the rest of your furniture. So I got to thinking, maybe a (NOT MILK CHOCOLATE) but 85% cocoa dark chocolate color cornice/valance over top of the white drapes would tie my both favorite drapes together with furniture and art. Or you could just dip the tops of the white drapes into melted chocolate as an ombre affect and you could just suck on your drapes when you need a lift.
Saratoga Pixie
I love the white walls and the contrasting layers. I just may borrow this look for my family room. I do have a design question. What do you advise regarding family photos. In my living room, I have a combination of prints and family photos on the walls and it just doesn't gel properly. Any advice?
Cheryl
Love the dark curtains. I've been considering shaker shutters for my own 1926 house. A combination of asthma and cats makes curtains a pain, and shutters are just so tidy looking.