L-I-V-I-N Room

I’m not kidding, this yellow-on-yellow grungy room is huge. Well, maybe it just felt extra huge because we painted every large wall of this sucker ourselves. This is what it looked like when we bought it:
I have SO many questions for the previous owners.

Notice the grungy yellow on yellow. Notice the multiple animal decorations paired with that grey leather (?) sofa. Now, notice the potential! I see crown moldings, picture rails, a bleh-but-beautiful fireplace, large new windows, room symmetry, and original hardwood floors. I notice mostly cosmetic fixes! So here’s what I wanted to do:

After a few months of living in the yellow, my black heart couldn’t take it anymore. David went out of town, and I got started painting the walls “Granite Boulder” by Behr. It’s a nice, deep, blue-ish gray color.

I painted the crown molding, picture rails, fireplace surround, and baseboards “Falling Snow” by Behr. It’s a bright, grey-ish white color. think the trim color is nice because I’m a fan of traditional white trim in this traditional house, and also it’s the same color of the adjacent sun room walls. Painting and cleaning the crown moldings made me seriously question my sanity. I had to vacuum the 1 inch gap between the crown molding and the picture rail molding, which was awkward. Also, it’s incredible the amount of dirt and grime and spiderwebs that accumulate in small gaps like that over time. Thank goodness for Kanye’s hype Life of Pablo album, or I never would have been able to power through that project. Painting and cleaning that much trim will make you loco.

Next, I recruited the hubby to tackle the aforementioned bleh-but-beautiful fireplace.

Fireplaces should be focal points of rooms! Our fireplace had no definition, no shazaam, no wow factor. It was yellow on yellow like the rest of the room. They even painted the inside bricks yellow- for the love of God, who does that???!

So, to make the fireplace stand out, we added white faux ship lap to the surround. (Thank you Pinterest and your fabulous tutorials.) We whitewashed the mantle, and painted the fire box bricks black. I’m not usually a fan of a TV above a mantle, but I think it can totally work if it looks natural. I think we did a good job of making the TV look like it belonged in the fireplace space. Besides, where else was I going to put the TV in the room? I’m equally not a fan of placing TV’s in front of windows. The black TV works with the black fire box below it. And after I added some empty black frames around it, it now looks like part of a gallery wall. Those are random thrift store frames painted black, btw. Then I added some candle holders (also from a thrift store) propped up on vintage books, and topped with topiaries. The glass bottles I think I found at an warehouse going out of business sale.

I HATE seeing cords and cable boxes, but they’re a necessary evil because I love my cable and Netflix! I tried to blend my cable boxes into the décor by putting them in a wire basket atop a vintage book.

The mantle decorations are simple, and can be refreshed with seasonal stuff throughout the year. I love that it’s so easy to change up a room by just redecorating your mantle.

We made pipe curtain rods, and hung Ikea curtains.

I filled the large wall spaces modern and rustic. I divided and printed one of David’s Junction photographs and hung above the sofa. We made planter boxes out of shiplap and filled with golden pathos. We also purchased a Lynn Basa painting to add a little art to the walls. Of course, the big black dog is the room’s best accessory.