Our New Home: Eclectic and Elegant Living Room Redo

If you’re here visiting from My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, then welcome.  We’re so glad you’re here!

I’ve been showing you all the steps along the way as I updated our living room. Well, it’s finally (mostly) done, so today I’m showing you the whole thing instead of just small corners!

You can see all the related posts at the bottom; I’ll link to them all so you can see the progress along the way.  For those of you who are new, this is military housing and it’s just like a rental in that I can’t make major/permanent changes.  Otherwise, the stair banister and treads would have been painted last summer!

I’m not even sure how to describe my decorating style anymore, but eclectic comes to mind (aren’t all real houses eclectic, anyway?).  We’ve had the Pottery Barn sofa and chair for almost 15 years now, and the white slipcovers for ten of those years, and I think we’ll be due to replace them soon.  They’ve hung in there for quite a long time, though.

You can see the post on the painted black velvet chair {here} and the DIY gold striped vase {here}.

 I never could find a coffee table I liked, and we often need extra seating, so I used this bench I found at HomeGoods as a coffee table.  The coral lumbar pillow is from Stein-Mart, a few years ago, and the gold monogram is the one we’re giving away.  I make them with my Silhouette CAMEO.  {You can buy the gold monogram in our Etsy shop}

 I have a fair amount of blue in the room, but it works with the gold and the bits of coral.

 The built-ins are ones that we DIY’ed with IKEA shelving; the tutorial on how we trimmed them is {here} and you can see the “before” pictures of the room there, too.

My husband’s old leather recliner is due for an upgrade, but for some reason we can’t find one that we both agree on (surprise!).  I, of course, want one that doesn’t look like a recliner, and he, of course, wants a big, huge, comfortable Man Chair.  Any suggestions?

The teal cabinet is from Target {here}; all I did was paint the knobs gold.  The lamp is from HomeGoods.

I’ve always had lots of black and white accents, so it was easy enough to style the bookshelves (and fun–that’s always my favorite part!).  You’ll recognize a lot of the decor from the great room in our last house {here}.  While I’m still tempted to put paper in the back of the shelves, I haven’t decided on what color or pattern I want yet.

The Barcelona chair is a true 70’s original; I remember it being in my house when I was in kindergarten.  See, if you hold onto things long enough, they come back in style eventually!

PS I realized when I was editing the photos that the coral pillow has mysteriously traveled during the photos…good thing you’re a forgiving audience!

Random aside:  have you read {this} book yet?  It’s the Charleston Academy of Domestic Pursuits, and it’s beautiful, useful, and hilarious…and will probably be my go-to birthday gift this year.

Obviously, pictures of family and friends fill the room.  In the picture below, my friend Carolyn and I are both rocking dresses that we scored at Goodwill.

I did change out the curtains; I had the exact same ones in here originally, but in blue.  They’re the Farah Fretwork panels from Target and they’re {here}.  I’ll either hold onto the blue ones for the next house, or Amy has mentioned that she might want them. 🙂

I do love the mix of gold, coral pink, black, and white.  Since we only have one living area (no den or bonus room in this house), it has to be casual and elegant all at the same time.  That’s a tough combination!

I still struggle with the mantel area; it will change again.  The stained glass window is from the church where my parents were married and it is so special.  It can be tricky to accessorize around it, though, because of all the colors, so a lot of times I just leave my mantel bare and let it stand alone.  Obviously I didn’t do that this time!

From this angle, you can peek into our kitchen and see my computer armoire {here’s the inside}.  That’s where I do all of my blogging–I spend a lot of time there!  On the wall to right of that is my new vinyl week-at-a-glance calendar.  I’ll be posting the how-to’s in a few days, but you can see something similar in one of my old houses {here}.

It seems to make sense to have a few Savannah books sitting out, since that’s where we’re lucky enough to be stationed right now.  What an amazing town!

The light fixture in this picture is from Ballard Designs;  I changed quite a few light fixtures out when we moved in and will take them with us when we move.  I consider that one of my most valuable DIY skills, since it makes such a huge difference in a room to have beautiful lighting.  I tragically had to leave eight chandeliers behind in our last house, but am busily replenishing my collection thanks to Craigslist and the local thrift stores.  Finding good deals helps with budgeting and money management.

Want to see more?  The rest of the house tour is {here} for this house, and {here} for our previous house, and {here} for the one before that.  Ah, the joys of military life–it’s a good thing I love to decorate, right?!

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As promised, here are the other posts on this room update:

Built-ins, part 1

Garden Stool

Couch and Pillows

Black Velvet Chair

Gold Vase

Tutorial on Built-ins (part 2)

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