Making a living room to Live in...

In thinking about how Kim and I wanted our living room to 'feel' we just thought 'comfortable.' We wanted to buy some nice pieces, but we didn't want to feel like the room was off limits in order to not break, damage, or spill. We wanted simplicity with a little style. We wanted brighter colors, not dark and elegant. Dark and elegant is nice, but I think Kim and I are too cheery and we needed our colors to reflect that.

Now it must be repeated that Kim and I had to start from scratch. All of our college furniture was past its prime and was donated to Kim's Junior League attic sale. We hardly had a pot to you know what in, but we did have some wooden folding chairs that got us through the first month and a half in our new home. Those chairs acted as a desk, ladder, table, shelf, and seat. I hated to see some of our stuff go, but I was very excited to start over and make our house our own!

Living room Beginning:

Yikes!, pretty sad, but those are our trusty dusty folding chairs, and boxes to dine on. I believe Pizza Hut Pepperoni Stuff Crust was on the menu that evening.

First addition:

We had these bookshelves built because there was room for them, and it just looked like those open areas on either side of the mantle needed bookshelves! Glad we went ahead and did this before the furniture arrived; big time mess, sawdust, paint, etc. We had bead board installed on the back of the shelves and painted Scenic Drive(smokey, blue/green/gray, or something) This color on the shelves was kind of our launch point for the rest of the room.

After 6 long weeks of folding chairs.....

Furniture begins to arrive. Now, its not like this stuff just showed up, for 6 weeks Kim and I were camped out at Custom Interiors here in Albany with Krista Mock who helped us pull everything together how we wanted. Krista was probably about ready to get rid of me because of my non-professional opinions, but she did give me a nice nickname, Designer Nick. We filed through every piece of fabric in order to get the 'comfortable feel' we wanted.

Starting to take shape:

Light blue Pearl Trellis fabric from Thibaut for the side chairs. Sofa is a very textured weave fabric, kind of cream colored. Bookshelves are empty... need to address that situation!

We chose to accessorize the shelves with stone and green colored items. I like the idea of not cramming too many colors into one space. I like the consistency. It feels even.

Right side shelf, plus our unique 3rd chair. We loved the orange/red Imperial Trellis fabric from Schumacher. We had to put it on something!

We chose the fabric for these pillows because they have every color the room has. It was an exciting find after the hundreds of other patterns we vetoed!

Kim looooves Monogramming

Cool frame from Carriage Trade in Albany, and we finally get to use those engagement photos

We're still not sure about this wall behind the sofa. We love this chest, but the rest of the wall needs a little more flare. It is a little plain.

And, I have to include the owl which is Kim's favorite purchase so far!

Feeling like home, finally:

This is how the people we bought the house from had this room, (kind of a Before pic) :

And here it is today (our version):

We are still not all the way there, but we have made a ton of progress for certain. There will be some fun additions along the way and I will try to update those when possible. We love our home and hope you will visit soon.