If you looked around our blog you will have seen our wooden slat wall project. That’s what kicked off our open plan living room makeover. I’m sure you are pretty familiar with that feeling when you finish one project, suddenly everything else looks worse and so after lots of Pinterest and Instagram research and inspiration we had a plan.
It’s not that our living room was desperately in need of work with things falling apart and paint peeling off the walls. It’s just that we hadn’t really done it properly for quite a few years.
Before the makeover
Here are some ‘before’ shots. Nic’s art was forming part of the decor and my plant obsession hadn’t really taken hold yet.
The cupboard by the front door (left) is for shoes and coats. The top cupboard never gets used. This all changed with the wooden slat wall project. Also, the stairs are going to be changed to something SOOO cool, look out for that post.
Another reason that pushed us in to finally decorating was a damp issue. New windows had been fitted a couple of years before and we think during fitting a crack had formed outside around the window and leading. The problem was fixed once we’d tracked it down and we gave it a few months of drying out to make sure it didn’t return through the winter, then we had the whole internal wall re-rendered.
Living room makeover inspiration
Once the plaster had dried we were in full lockdown so paint had to be ordered online. It’s not the brightest of rooms but the house faces South East so we get lot’s of light through the day. This room has gone through many light and pastel shades over the years so we decided we wanted a dark feature wall colour this time and chose Sapphire Salute from Dulux.
Some of the ideas we found on Pinterest.
By this point, we had already bought our new sofas from Sofology as part of our long term living room makeover plans, so there was a certain theme starting to form with the style of decor. There’s a bit of a mid-century / boho mix going on and we found accessories to help bring this together. We replaced the mirror over the fireplace with a large round one from Ikea, a thick pile diamond pattern rug from Dunelm.com and a set of ladder shelves. The skirting and firepalce were stained darker using a combination of walnut and indian rosewood stains also, we also added the beautiful lampshade we talked about on a previous blog and a selection of Nic’s crafty creations in the form of woven wall hangings, dream catchers and resin artwork.
One of the other things we decided early on was that we would finally have blinds and not curtains. The window bay has always become a cold air trap behind curtains and having it opened up makes the room bigger, so we ordered custom made low profile blinds from blinds2go in COPPER!!! and when the sun catches them they make the whole room glow.
The big living room reveal
So this is the result, the first part of the room done. It’s cosy, warm and very chilled.
