Living Room Love

Have you ever noticed how some people call their main room their "Living Room" and others call it their "Family Room?"  I've noticed that a lot, and I find it so interesting!  I think it depends on how you grow up, your geographic location, and the terminology you learn, don't you think?  Not that this is the right way, but I've just always called our main area/TV/relaxing room our family room, and the room in the front of our house, next to our dining room with a more formal feel is our living room.  I say it has a more "formal feel" because that's where the "fancy" furniture went in the house I grew up in, including the piano (pianos are fancy!).  As children, and actually even as adults, we didn't really spend time in the living room unless it was to practice the piano or open gifts on Christmas morning.

I think I've carried those same rules/feelings with me now that I have my own home, but the thing is, I don't want to; I want to create a space that is pretty to look at, yet still inviting and useful.  It was with this in mind that I started putting our Living Room together, piece by piece. 

Our living room is directly to the right of our front door when you enter our home, so I knew it needed to make a statement.  For a while, we just had extra couches from our apartment in that room, simply because we had nowhere else to put them. 

The first step I took to putting this room together was moving the couches out of the room.  After we pained the front rooms, I was on the hunt for the perfect accent chairs, which I talked about here: here.  These chairs were the jump-start I needed with this room, and everything else fell into place after I found them and put them in the room.  Does that ever happen to you?  Everything else in a room or space falls into place because of one item working out so well?  Love it when that happens!

Anyways, my next step was to find drapes - I love and dislike this process for any room I'm working on because I truly feel like draperies make a room, which is why I probably put more unnecessary pressure on myself to make them what I want.  I searched for draperies including all kinds of materials, textures, prints, solids, and colors, and found these ones from JCPenney:  

They were the perfect neutral color while still consisting of a formal fabric.

The last piece of this room was to find a sofa.  This is usually something that would take waaaay longer for me to pick out, but while we were at JCP picking out the curtains, we decided to take a stroll through the furniture department "just in case," and we found this gorgeous sofa:  

It has a woven texture and a curved back - love the curved back!  And it was the perfect color to compliment the already assembled accent chairs and curtains - sold!  Here are a few photos of the room all put together now:

I'm loving it so far!  I say "so far" because I still have a few other items on my list to tackle, like window treatments, a coffee table (I have big plans for that), and throw pillows for the couch.

Like I said earlier, some serious Living Room Love going on!!

- Lauren