So the Living Room is coming along. It’s a slow process as all you who decorate know. :) I’ve definitely made a couple mistakes, but am learning that I need to go with my gut, and not with what everybody else is doing even when it looks fab in there own homes.

Soo the last I shared my living room looked like this. I had just gone from gray/beige to white. You can view the full room tour here.

It was slowly coming to my vision.

I have made a few changes that you may have seen if you follow me on Instagram.

I started by recovering our sofa. It just had a slipcover on it, so I took that off and started a Charcoal colored one. I really want white, but after living with the white cushions on the basement sofa that we use a couple times a month at best I knew I would be laundering a white slipcover in the living room every single week, so charcoal it is.  I am almost done. Just the two back cushions left and a few tweaks to make things fit perfectly.

We upgraded our toy storage from all the jumbled baskets and the small cream cabinet in the top picture next to the red sofa. These bins won as the perfect solution because they where the exact, I mean EXACT, dimensions I need to maximize storage on the shelf. They are awesome and from the land of nod if your interested. They sell out fast though.  I also brought up Luke’s little table from the basement to replace the cream cabinet I was able to do away with.  Oh and that kiddo chair is for sure getting reupholstered or slip-covered.

The map below is one of my favorites. I bought it for $6 at the Kane County Flea Market and really wish I had the forsight to buy the other 3 or 4 maps the guy had to. :) It’s been in the stairwell for a long time and it actually works perfectly there, but in my “I need something above the red sofa phase” I brought it down and lived with it above the sofa for awhile. Yeah, it just didn’t work. I love maps above other peoples sofas, but I think it is to big for this sofa/wall and to much color. So I admitted defeat and popped up some simple gallery frames and you know what, it’s perfect. I am hoping to thrift vintage letters to spell out a word above the frames. But that will take time and for now it’s just nice to have the openess.

Okay, you may also notice we got a new rug… and in this photo of our living I snapped tonight around 9pm (read:dark & blurry) you will notice I finally got my chair reupholstered! Love it so much! Clearly this picture shows the horibble clashing of the rug now that the chairs is back….. It HAS to go. Don’t get me wrong I like the rug. It was a great match for the room until the chair came in, and since I LOVE the chair and am only in like with the rug it will be relocated or sold.

So this brings me to you all to ask for a little input . :) Have you heard of Olioboard? I signed up for it last year when I was trying to figure out living room fabrics, and it is fun. You can make an idea board with pictures of your furniture, or anything on their site. I am sure you can make a board with Oliobaord better than mine if you want to take more time than I did. Or maybe if you are a wiz at Photoshop you can pop a rug into your own room picture. I can’t. :)

I went back tonight and popped in some different rug options. So let me know what you think. I cropped in pictures of my red sofa, my new chair, a stock photo of a similar sofa and shelf, I cropped in my sofa wall awhile back so it’s changed a bit but the colors are basically the same. And then I popped in some pillows that are similar colors to what we have. So it’s not exactly like our living room but it gives the feel.

Option 1: An over dyed traditional rug in peacock.

Option 2: A fun yellow and white abstract rug.

Option 3: A lovely Moroccan style navy rug.

Option 4: A black and white diamondy rug.

Option 5: A black and white striped rug.

So what do you guys think? I am not sure. As long as I have been decorating my own home the only rug I haven’t had regrets about is the original (and our first rug) in the living room shown in the very first picture in this post. But it leans towards beige undertones which won’t work in here. My husband just rolls his eyes at me and reminds me that I already bought a rug for in here recently so he will not be footing the bill. :) Luckily I have my own personal money that I will be able to do some damage with. ;)

I thought I would share to a: get some help in the way of opinions and b: to share that if your not happy with it than change it. I find my own home to be so much harder to make exactly as I like than it is to decorate others homes.  Also sometimes it’s just better wait for what you know will be perfect in the long run than to rush into something just to fill space.

p.s. I will have much better pictures than these I snapped with the old phone once I get that rug, the sofa cushions down, and the little wing back covered. :)

Thanks for stopping by!