Newlywed Home Tour: Living Room
Being a rental home, we were unable to demolish the unfortunate shelving that overtakes the living room. Painting the woodwork was also, sadly, a no-go.... Painting it cream would have helped the dire situation by opening up the room and bringing in more light (as well as tying in all the colors instead of being an eyesore), but reminding myself that this is a temporary home, we made do by removing 14 shelves and decorating the remaining shelves with our wedding decor and pictures.
Note: This is what we originally had to work with...
With a little love and creativity, we did what we could with what we had to work with... Welcome to the wedding shrine...aka our living room!
Searching for pillows that fit this color scheme in fall and winter proved to be a challenge and a lost cause as I quickly learned that these decor colors aren't in their prime until spring and summer. Out of all the pillows in the stores, only two fit the bill. Not being patient enough to wait 6 months for the remaining pillows, I decided to take on the world of pillows and create my own custom look. Having the philosophy of "when in doubt, buy more pillows", I set off on my first pillow challenge, tackling JoAnn's Fabric store... If you saw a girl cruising the aisles with an overflowing cart full of cascading pillows, this may or may not have been me... #indireneedofalargercart
Faces have been concealed to protect the innocent...
After spending way too much time at JoAnn's Fabric selecting custom fabrics for pillows, I finally settled on a few different patterns to tie in all the colors of the room.
Needless to say, hubs wasn't much help... Within 30 seconds of laying out the patterns to have hubs help me in the selection process, he was fast asleep... Looks like this would be a solo endeavor for me...
Side Note: This pic also serves as a "Before" the sectional sofa arrived... This took quite a bit of convincing before hubs was finally able to let go of his black bachelor pad sofa and chair... "Let go" as in the bachelor pad set now resides in the extra room upstairs, waiting for a willing taker or for hub's future man cave... #compromiseisthenameofthegame
Thanks to my amazing Aunt Karen who supplied me with sewing lessons and surprised me with an awesome sewing machine, I threw out the seamstress business cards I had been collecting and took on the challenge myself. I think I made 12 pillows in one day (I can be a little overzealous when I put my mind to something).
Instead of having a typical sand ceremony at our Wedding, we switched it up a bit by adding a few more elements to create a unique visual which also serves as a daily reminder to us to keep our priorities straight and live with intention as we have this displayed in our living room.
For a quick explanation: If we live our lives with God (gold geometric shape in the vase) at the center of our lives and put him first, then everything else will fit according to his plan. With God at the center, we can still add in the other elements in our lives: our marriage: (heart-shaped rock), family & friends (turquoise balls), careers/dreams/goals (gold balls), and personal lives (sand from our home states), and everything fits into place (as shown in the vase). If, however, we choose to live our own way by making our personal lives the priority, followed by career/dreams/goals/hobbies, then friends and family, our marriage, and finally God, we wouldn't be able to fit everything into our lives as some things would be inevitably left out, just like they wouldn't all fit into the vase if we added everything the opposite way.
Here are a few more shots of the living room:
Of course Miya had to make another appearance by her customized pillow, one of our favorite Christmas gifts from the in-laws. :)
This decor was from our wedding weekend (the shutters even held our guests' place cards).
Here are a few ideas of decor items to add to create a visually appealing tray for an ottoman:
something whimsical (the silver star decor)
something sentimental (our wedding picture)
something useful (Charleston coasters, our destination wedding city)
something to create height (the candleholders and candles)
a plant (succulents work great too!)
For a vintage touch, try adding some antique books to create height and give it a unique look as well.
Ugly black cords? No problem... Who would have thought our first marital disagreement would have been about hiding ugly black cords? We didn't exactly see eye-to-eye on the issue of numerous black cords (TV, DVD, speaker, cable, other speaker, whatever-else cords). What happened to the days of just one simple cord? Hubby had no problem with the black cords hanging every which way from the TV and being in full view snaking along their eyesore path to the outlets and cable box. Wifey had other ideas... For the record, I did compromise and let the cords be an eyesore for all of 4 months, but after that, it was time to de-bachelor pad the living room and do my best to make it homey.
Since this was a rental home, we didn't get any say of where the TV would be or where the outlets and cable would be located. Having the cable and outlets in not the most fortunate of places for decorating purposes, we had no choice but to be creative. As much as we would have loved to drill holes in the wall to hide the ugly black cords, this was also not an option... So our "compromise" solution was 1.) hubs did his best to tie up and "hide" the cords, then 2.) I added my part to hide the cords with a basket of greenery under the TV along with a few taller vases on the sides to hide the ugly cords. Lastly, the drapes were strategically placed to help hide the remaining cord obstacle course.
Wooden Basket: Michaels
Greenery: Michaels
Vases: HomeGoods
Lanterns: TJ Maxx
Sony TV: Best Buy (Hub's contribution to the decor)
To see larger images, click the photos in the gallery:
Sectional: Haverty's
Ottoman: Haverty's
Chair: HomeGoods
Rug: Haverty's
picture frames: HomeGoods
vases: HomeGoods
Other decor: HomeGoods & Target
Sand Ceremony: Hobby Lobby
Art: HomeGoods
Candleholders: Z. Gallerie
Lantern: Pottery Barn
Thanks for reading and checking out our living room! Check out more home decor ideas and design inspiration with a room-by-room tour in the Home Makeover section, learn how to redo and repurpose furniture on the Furniture Makeover page, or check out easy home project ideas and updates on the Home Projects page!
SaveSaveSave
