Living Room Progress: Calm, Relaxing, Light Blue too!

If you can't tell by now...we have been very busy over the last few weeks! Now that I have our to do lists up, I am excited to share some of the progress we've made in the new house. First stop, the living room! My goal for this room was to create a calm and relaxing space that our family could relax in. Especially for my husband, Josh, because his work can bring in long hours.For the most part, this room was literally a blank slate: beige walls, beige carpet, beige window treatments, and white trim. I am really thankful that was our starting point because it made my job a lot easier...no need to prime, no need to do anything radical to the trim, and for now, no need to do anything to the floors. The tasks at hand included getting some color on the walls and then decorate!

I was incredibly blessed to have help from my family when it came to painting. My mom and I busted this room out in a few hours and I really think that the color choice (Watery by Sherwin Williams) really makes the trim pop. It is so funny to think about how your own personal style evolves over time, too, because there was a time where I disliked blue for interior spaces....clearly I am over that aversion now. :)

We didn't spend a lot of money while putting this room together, I believe the total costs came in under $90- which I will get to in a second. As part of our move, we set aside a little bit of money for the new home that needed to cover a variety of things: paint, a few new pieces of furniture, new curtain hardware, random repairs, a new washer and dryer ($$$), new microwave, fire extinguishers...you get the idea. However, once that money was gone, that was it! Projects would have to wait, so staying on budget (or under) was/is very important in each room.

We still love our French Paper Company prints that I snagged for FREE at a paper show a few years back. :)
One of the fun parts of moving was that we decided to give our "old" furniture the freedom to be whatever it wanted to be in the new house. I felt that if I tried to take everything from our old living room and put it into our new living room that I would really be setting myself up for disappointment. They are two separate spaces with different shapes, angles, architectural features, window/door locations and size. OF COURSE the exact same furniture wasn't going to fit perfectly.
This realization helped to proactively relieve some frustration for me because I could easily see myself getting frustrated when trying to make all the old stuff work just because. Hence, the decision to let our furniture wander. We ended up pulling furniture in from all over the old house to use in this new living room and to be honest, I think the only thing that is the same as the old living room is one of the lamps and a few decor pieces. That just kind of makes me giggle.

With this home's color palette we have really tried to keep a lot of the old house colors in tthis home's color palette in order to eliminate the need to buy new things and keep costs way down- especially because we are in turbo payoff-student-loans mode. You know what is cool though? We had already decided on a color for this room AND painted it when someone gifted us this couch set. Yes, you heard me right! It is only about a year or so old, and it needed a new home. When they offered the set I was kind of astonished because they are so stunning.
Looking back, I just know that God knew we would be receiving this furniture way before I did. A special thank you goes out the previous owners for the blessing that they gave to our family. We are so excited to have this new-to-us furniture. We promise to take great care of it!

You might recognize these bookshelves from our last home's office. They have since gotten a facelift, or at least a color lift. I brightened these up one night at about 11pm with some leftover white paint in order to match the trim and brighten up the side wall a bit. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. Maybe down the road it might be fun to wallpaper the back of them, but that's just a dream for now.
A quick design tip that I have been using for a few years now is to color coordinate your books (the inspiration came from this post by Design Sponge). Some people aren't crazy about this idea but I think it helps something that otherwise might look a bit messy capture a more polished look.

I have also been utilizing a few apple crates around the room for extra storage and to bring in some natural textures. I think that adding natural textures to our living room helps give it some extra warmth. You can easily achieve this with textures like wood, baskets, or bamboo. Finding easy storage for toys was important, too, and right now between the two bottom shelves and drawers in the console- we seem to have more than enough. Now if only I could find a way to store Asa's car.....

Just so you know we are humans....that's definitely a sippy cup on the dining room table..and there is a cozy coupe around the corner ;)
The console you see in the above picture is one we snagged off of Craigslist last year for about $40. It also came with a hutch that was sitting on top but I ended up using that part to make our china cabinet in the dining room. We had previously used it as a dresser in our master bedroom, but thought that it deserved a better spot in the new house- it pretty snazzy eh?

Now, I'm not convinced about that blank space above the chair....we have been going back and forth about it. The current verdict is that hanging something in that space might be too busy but when I see the space on a screen it looks too bare. What are your thoughts? Hang a pretty watercolor or leave it bare? I'd love your wisdom!

Asa has really enjoyed sticking his little fingers in the crate's slats but we have been working on this area being a "no" area. I am fearful that he will pull on the lamps cord but so far we have been able to manage this area. If it does become a problem, we will reevaluate because safety is always more important than design choices.

Just in case you are wondering, here is the cost breakdown on this "design" and where we got most of it.
Living Room Source List Costs -Couch, chair, and ottoman, Hand me down, Free! -All large throw pillows, a few came with the couch, otherwise we already owned them, Free! -Small throw pillows (2), Ikea, - Total: $3 -Faux succulent stem, Hobby Lobby, $2 -Curtain Rods (2) Hanging Hardware (4), Ikea- Total: $12 -Curtains (2 Sets), Ikea, Total: $30 -Roman Shades, Came with the house, Free! -White and gray runner on console, splurge at Home Goods, $10 -Wall Color-Watery by Sherwin Williams- 1 Gallon (Got on sale-we had supplies to paint), $28 -Bookcases- hand me down, from old office- painted with extra white, Free! -Decor items including vases, lamps, crates, frames, wall shelves- already owned them, Free! (I should add that most of those were also hand me downs or Goodwill finds-no big spending) -Console, Craigslist, from our old bedroom, Free! -Teal chair, Local antique shop, from Asa's nursery, Free! -Corner cart, Local antique shop, from our old dining room, Free! -Magazine table, Local antique shop, from the old living room, Free! -Flowers-clippings from our yard, Free! TOTAL: $85
Now, as a footnote, I realize that all of these items were not free when we originally purchased them- if you were purchasing everything new this cost would be higher. For us creating this room, they were absolutely free pieces because we already owned them. I do think it is important to recognize that you can put together a good looking room with what you already have. Nice design does not have to be expensive! At just a glance, if I had to total up all the items we did buy previously (teal chair, console, decor items...etc), they would end up being under $200 total! So, if you are starting from scratch, that is a new living room some stellar (free) hand-me-downs for under $300. Music to by ears.
So there you have it! This is our "in progress" living room post but we are feeling pretty good about it thus far.