Cottage Living Room Decorating - Adding Softness with a Touch of Romance

We've been working on the kitchen so much over the last year that it's become a rare thing for me to post anything that's not kitchen related, so I thought I'd give you all a break from all things "cottage kitchen"...Today we're going to venture into the living room and see what's changed in there over the last year!

(living room before photo, right)Has this ever happened to you? For years, you are a renter who must suffer through living with white or beige walls - and then finally you are a homeowner. You tell yourself that *never* again will you have white or beige walls and before you know it, your new home looks like the inside of kaleidoscope...and you love it! I do believe this is what happened to me after buying our home a few years ago. My living room has been I don't know how many shades of yellow, and at one time I very briefly had a red accent wall. You may as well have been in McDonald's and I never even bothered to take pictures of that design blunder! At some point I decided that all four walls should remain yellow and after I finally found the right shade, I was quite pleased for a year or so. I think then, too, my own personal cottage style was still in development and I was going for more of country farmhouse style look.

The more I researched the many different cottage styles, however, the more I realized how much I loved (and needed) a very simple, soft, and romantic color palette. (See what I mean here in this beautiful blog!) I'm not talking about pink or other pastels...I mean whites and beiges, the colors that I told myself I would never use again in my own home! But balanced out with a few sparing pops of color here and there - dark brown to black accents and the red kitchen cabinets, white and beige can be very pretty and restful! So, last month when we painted the kitchen, we also repainted the living room the same beige color. It's called Malted Milk from Valspar at Lowes. (photo, left)

As far as remodeling goes, we haven't really tackled the living room yet other than remudding the walls, painting them, adding window trim, and giving the fireplace a makeover. One of the major things to be done to living room includes replacing the ceiling. Hubs wants to reinsulate up there which involves tearing out the old cottage-cheese laden ceiling and replacing it with a tung and groove ceiling like we installed in our kitchen. We will also be adding hardwood floors (we still have the painted white subflooring), tearing out an unused coat closet to add some space for a secretrary style desk, replacing the front door, installing baseboards (you can see from the photos that we are still baseboard-less!), and *maybe* adding beadboard around the perimeter of the living room to about the height of the just below fireplace mantel. (I don't know...what do you think about that?) So lots of work to do in here down the road.

I've decided that the cottage look I'm going for is more of European country / farmhouse cottage style, leaning heavily toward a romantic French flavor. Perhaps like an artist's countryside retreat... can you picture it? Oooh la la!

I thought I'd highlight a few of the projects that I worked on recently for the living room. Do you remember this table? It was actually a small dining room table that I bought at Goodwill for $10. Well over a year ago, I had hubs cut it down to coffee table height and then I primed it. And it sat primed in our living room for a very, very, very long time. The photo of our yellow living room above shows the table in it's primed state. Would you believe that last month I finally actually painted it and distressed it? (Someone please tell me that it takes you a year to paint your furniture, too!) We love having this oversized coffee table - it's great for games, food, or just propping your feet up on! So be on the look out for those small dining tables at thrift stores...it's amazing how a little paint and a saw can transform them!

I love displaying my favorite pages of my favorite books, especially art and poetry books. To counterbalance all the white going on the room, I'm trying to infuse some darker accents like the mirrors, lamps, candlesticks, and the wooden box. I think I need a taller something for the coffee table...hmm....

I bought the white end tables at the Nashville Flea Market a few years back. They were already painted white! Oh, and go ahead...help yourself to the bowl of...books!

What's up with all the mirrors, Kim? Yeah, I have a lot of them. I picked up all those circular mirrors at Old Time Pottery several months ago for $1.99 to 5.99 per mirror - not bad! It wasn't until last month that I finally hadsomething hanging above the sofa in the 4 1/2 years we've lived here! The big white mirror I found at a yard sale last year. You've seen it before when it was gold - remember? It was always my plan to paint it white and distress it and I'm happy to say that I got around to that project last month, too. I may end up adding some old white plates to this mirror grouping, too. The pillows are just standard sized pillows (like the ones you sleep on) covered with decorative cotton pillow shams. I've been on the lookout for a very long time for the perfect throw pillows but haven't found them yet. These pillows, though, work great! When we lounge on the couch, we use these pillows and really get comfortable! When the shams get soiled, I toss them in the wash and they are as good as new again.

First let me say that you are indeed seeing those two white partridges again, hehe. They somehow end up in all my little photo shoots. They are like the Where's Waldo of my cottage world...look hard enough and you'll always find them:) But the jewel of this photo is the teacup and saucer! Oh.My.Goodness! When I found these along with about 11 other cups, a few saucers and bowls, and a small cream pitcher, I just about kissed the nearest Goodwill associate. You better bet I rooted around for half an hour to find more pieces but alas, no large plates or sugar bowl or anything else. I did find out that this sweet pattern is called "Millbrook" made by Independence Ironstone. What I have is old (lots of crazing) but not too old - this particular pattern dates back to the 50's or 60's. I'm going to make it my goal to pick up pieces here and there online (they aren't that hard find!) and slowly build my collection. I never thought I'd fall in love with and collect a particular china pattern! I guess the problem was that I just never found the right one. Thank you, Goodwill!

The entryway into the kitchen was very stark and I wanted to come up with a way to soften it a bit and add a little more interest. Here in the background you can see the almost sheer cotton curtains I hung and swagged behind this large ivy topiary, another Goodwill find. If I remember correctly, the pot was purple but I painted it out in white. One advantage to having the topiary here is that it prevents the kids from running through the curtains like they would sheets on a clothesline on a warm summer day:)

This photo gives you an idea of how the entryway to the kitchen looks now with the romantic curtain addition. I purchased those curtains, perfect condition, at Goodwill, too. They are the Shabby Chic brand by Rachel Ashwell. The wall with the white chair would be a great place for' something interesting. For now, I'm pleased to have this open space. I bought some good canvas a couple of months ago to create my own floorcloth and I'm thinking this stretch of space would be the perfect location for it. I just need to come up with a design...still thinking about that one! Oh, and meet my corgi, Cara Bella:)

Let me preface the following photos by saying that I hate the giant elephant in the corner - that huge TV. I enjoy having a large screen but I hate the fact that I can see it. Do you know what I mean? How I'd love to have a cabinet in which to hide it away...or a sleeker flat screen, or better yet, another room entirely for the television! Unfortunately, I have none of those and there is no getting around the fact that I have to decorate with the said elephant in the corner. Add to that, our living room is really small and there really is nowhere else in the room to move it. *sigh* So there it is. Let's just pretend we don't see it. I don't see it. Do you? I just moved the loveseat in front of the window a few days ago. Originally it was perpendicular to the couch, but I needed a change.

On the floor leaning against the wall is my growing collection of frames and mirrors. The large white one was originally gold. I think I want to make that one into a chalk board and just lean it up against the island in the kitchen. And I can't believe I finally have curtains up in the living room! The are long linen curtains from West Elm. I bought them a couple of years ago on Ebay - new and still in the package - for a fraction of the cost of buying them retail! It took me a little while to collect all four panels from various sellers, but as you know, I don't get in a hurry very easily:) As for the little round table, it was stained a honey color but I sanded it down, primed, painted, and distressed it. (I bought it at Wal-mart on clearance at a great price for solid wood...actually, I bought two!)

This is another Goodwill mirror. It's one of those heavy duty plastic mirrors that was originally gold. I removed the mirror, sprayed it with a dark brown paint, sanded it just a bit, popped the mirror back in and voila! Say hi to Penelope my beagle warming herself in front of the fire...

I hope you enjoyed this recap of my recent living room changes. Though we still have a lot to do renovationwise in here, it's been fun working on these smaller decorative projects for a change:)

I hope everyone is staying warm and dry!

~Kim