Living Room Updates

Our living room is sorta like my black sweatpants: comfortable, easy to hang out in for hours...but kinda fugly. In fact, it may be the room that gets on my nerves the most out of all of them in my house. You know when you keep second guessing a decor decision? That's me all the time. I'm over the green couch, the mustard walls, the damask-print, heavy rug. It just doesn't feel like my aesthetics at all, despite the fact that I picked out everything.

This summer, I added a few things in my living room to make it a little more modern and bright. It's still not my favorite room in my house (far from it!), but I feel like the little changes made somewhat of a difference.

Here's my living room before, with the dark rug and pillows:


And here it is with a few upgrades (rug, throw pillows, coffee table):

I'm pretty pleased with the results!

While we can't afford a new couch, I feel like the new throw pillows (from Tonic Living) help make the puke-green, wrinkly old one a little easier on the eyes.


We bought the coffee table at Crate and Barrel and after three straight days of trying to put it together, were finally able to! It was a decent bargain for such a high end store, and I love having somewhere to display the albums I made on Shutterfly of our family adventures. (If you are not into scrapbooking and want to preserve your photos, I definitely recommend making an album on Shutterfly. They almost look like professional coffee table books.)


I didn't do much with the mantle, but since I'm going to changing it up for fall soon, I thought I would share what I had going on this summer.

Here was the mantle before, too empty and too symmetrical:

Here it is after a bit of rearranging and adding a plant:




Definitely not a makeover of any kind, but I was happy with my minor upgrades! Still on my wishlist: replacing the couch, removing the brass from around the fireplace, buying side tables and lamps, and re-painting the walls a lighter color.

Oh, and I'll be decking out my house for Halloween sometime this week, so swing back by if you'd like to check out my spooky mantle and tablescape. :)