Home Base: Living Room Update
Virginia Beach, Virginia
I’m considering myself inspired! Honestly, I had no intention of blogging about our living room today in our Virginia Beach Home Base flip house. Really though. It’s snowing here (which NEVER happens), my kids are both napping, and it’s just cozy time right now. But, I was inspired.
There I was, minding my own business, looking up ladder desk DIY’s for Sean’s new office space in our master bedroom, when BAM! I was unapologetically inspired by Chris Loves Julia. I understand that this is extremely common for most people. In fact, there should be a disclaimer on there website and every single one of their pins that reads “ Warning: you will spiral into a DIY project after reading or viewing this. Enjoy at your own risk.”
I realize this is an issue for most people. After succumbing to my fate, I found myself down a deep hole of beautiful interior design eye candy commonly referred to as Chris and Julia’s home when I stumbled into their sitting room. These moments are the moments you must hold onto. Listen closely: I was in love with the open shelves and moody colors and instead of feeling jealous or allowing comparison that thief of joy to enter into my space, I realized something very different. My OWN living room, looks a lot like this!
It is so common for us to allow beautiful homes to consume us with self-doubt and covetous. But, in this moment, I was GRATEFUL.
There I was, peering over the pass through in my kitchen, that my husband and father slaved over about 15 months ago and found myself loving what I was looking at.
I was quickly distracted again by these textured square tiles from Home Depot that make up our backsplash, again, feeling so blessed to have them in my home. I digress…
Enough sappiness and more content… shall we. The walls were painted three times before I found this color. Yep… three times. First it was green, then it was grey/green, and now deep navy. The color is called Winter Way by Behr Paint. Both the black coffee table and side table were painted black by me after being given to me before being given to the trash.
The muddy blue went so well with this rug from Overstock that I have always loved since the day we got it (if you were my husband you would know that I am notorious for hating rugs months after living with them… I don’t know what it is. I’m just VERY picky about rugs. One detail wrong and it’s on the curb.) This rug, luckily, has fit some kind of odd shaped box in my brain and it tells me, “yes, it can stay.”
The couch is from Article along with everything else in my future dream home. I love the mid century modern feel without it feeling “alien.” That’s my general take on mid mod design: a little too alien and slanted lines BUT, when done right, the clean lines appeal to me greatly. Article achieves this with their gorgeous furniture.
As, Bluey entertained my children on TV, turning them into momentary zombies, I realized the light from the snowy outside was hitting my living room perfectly. It’s these moments you can not miss. I whipped out my camera and snapped the photos I needed to share with y’all.
I’d like to draw your attention to what lies beyond the child zombies to the perfectly built “Pottery Barn style” photo ledge that my husband built me. I begged him for months showing him tutorial after tutorial that it wouldn’t be hard to create this DIY ledge. After about 15 minutes of constructing, he agreed with me. Three boards, some screws, nails, and stain yielded me a beautiful large photo ledge with plenty of layering space.
This is what makes a good photo ledge: depth. If you can’t layer three or more frames, it isn’t deep enough. Even though I have chosen to only layer about two photos against each other at a time here, there is plenty of “lean room.” I can lean the photo frames less or more to create a more dramatic level effect.
Lately, I have become photo framing obsessed and with this obsession comes bankruptcy usually so in order to avoid that little issue, I found some fun DIY photo framing and matting hacks I can’t wait to share with you soon.
I’m becoming more and more DIY doing because, one, hashtag nesting, and two, I want all the things and don’t currently have all the money so… sorry I am not sorry for sharing more and more projects of our home and how I’m doing them.
Besides, at 30 weeks pregnant, I’m pretty much home bound. There has been no flip house assisting out of the house for me.
Feast your eyes on a couple “before” shots from the day we moved in. My heart can barely handle looking back at not only the ugly but also the memory of all the hard work. You can read the story here of how hard those first few months were to move into a fixer upper with two tiny humans.
There you have it. It is not done in anyway (yellow ring around the semi flush mount ceiling light… I’m talking to you.) Oh, and the baseboard isn’t finished being installed yet either.
I have plans for the blinds, Sean has plans to RETILE over the fireplace (insert brain explosion here) and plans for a new mantle to come. Again, I refuse to take this time to come off my cloud 9 and begin to want more things because I am happy. Take time to be satisfied with how far you have come no matter where you are in life.
Speaking of fighting off feelings of dissatisfaction, this playroom has also come so far! It too is not done but I am here to report another new rug from Overstock that is killing it in this room. My recent goal with rugs and furniture is to make sure it has character but is neutral because our cute place now will not fit us forever. Everything that comes in must be able to go to our next place and transfer well… unlike my two year old after falling asleep in the car. She doesn’t transfer.
We have no closet door in this room so behind me is an open hole in the wall with toys spilling out. And if you’re like me toasting the air saying, “I’d drink to that” here’s to you. I’m sure when we get to our DIY three paneled barn door I’d like for the closet door, there will be a playroom reveal followed by more toasting. But not now, kids. Not now.
Over and out, #feelinggrateful :)
Ann | DESIGN