Living Room Update

I'm still in the early stage of planning the living room, but I did manage to figure out a rough floor plan. The room is shaped a little bit oddly, so I'm having to work around that and the window placements.  The furniture will consist mostly of a small couch or loveseat and two arm chairs. I'm going to get three bookshelves for the wall directly across from the door.  I haven't decided if I'll have an ottoman in front of the loveseat, I think that will depend on the specific furniture that I select for the other pieces and how much room there is.

I'm probably going to pick natural and neutral colors for the furniture, like linen, beiges and creams.  However, finding the perfect furniture is proving to be difficult without spending a ton of money. These are a few that have caught my eye, so it will probably be something along these lines...

I'm also on the hunt for some arm chairs that will be nice for sitting and reading in them.  I love the tufting in these two:

   

I'm looking for a new light fixture for this room and I think a chandelier would be gorgeous. Of course, I found the perfect chandelier, but it's sold out everywhere, so the search continues for something similar. This is what the one I wanted looked like:

For the wall of bookshelves, I'm going to get three bookshelves that can be placed flush together to create a built-in look for our space. I've gone back and forth on a lot of different shelves, but right now I'm looking at the large bookshelves from Ballard Designs or getting custom bookcases made and painted white.

 

As for where the color in this room will come in, I've started looking at paints and fabrics. At the moment, I'm thinking of using the P. Kaufmann Leaf fabric in Cloud for the curtains. However, I'm going to check out some more fabric stores to see if there is anything else that I like better.  You can see how the leaf fabric looks with greens and natural linen colors in this picture:

I've started looking at paint for the walls too. I think a light green wall color that coordinates well with the rest of our house will be pretty. I picked up a ton of swatches at Sherwin Williams and narrowed it down to these strips, but I think I will keep looking until I settle on the fabric.

So, that's where things are at the moment. I'm really trying to figure out the overall look of the room before I start buying a ton of stuff. I'm excited with the progress and hope to share more updates with you soon!

Living Room Inspiration

So, we've managed to ignore our formal living room until now. It's been mostly empty, since we moved in, but I've used it to store a lot of stuff out of the way. We're going to clear it out and start work on this room very soon... I'm excited! But, before we get to that, I thought I'd show you some of my inspiration and plans for this room.

As a reminder, this is what the room looks like:

Yep, it's pretty plain, even though you can't see much from this photo. My favorite thing about this room is set of french doors that open to the room, I love how they add separation, but don't block the light. I think they will be a great feature when the room is a sitting room/library, because you can sit and read in quiet, even if there's something else going on in the house.

I have a big Pinterest board on living rooms here that I've used to collect lots of ideas for this room. I also have made some collages of specific furniture pieces that I like and would like to use to bring this room to fruition.  I'm think I want to make the wall across from the french doors book shelves and I'll have a love seat or sofa and two arm chairs in the room for seating.  As for the color scheme, I want it to coordinate well with the other colors we have downstairs, but I want something a little bit different. I'm hoping to bring in some new colors with fabric on curtains or pillows.

Here are some of my favorite living rooms and details that I've collected. If you're interested in a source, see my Pinterest board.

 

  

 

 

 

That was a lot of pictures! As you can see, I have a general idea of what I like, but I think actually choosing the pieces I want is going to be tough! There are a lot of similarities in these pictures:
- creamy, natural color palettes
- mix of seating: chairs, sofas, large ottomans
- feminine chandelier or statement light fixture
- gallery wall of large square frames
- pretty bookshelves and storage
- bright and airy window treatments

Here's an inspiration board/collage of some more specific elements I like:

And lastly, I got some new fabric samples from LS Fabric in Atlanta yesterday. I ordered some fabrics to consider for curtains or accessories. Some of them have really large repeats, so you can't see the whole pattern.

That's where I am with the plans and inspiration for the living room. I'll update again soon when we start making some selections!

So, what do you think?

2012 Goals

Sorry for the lack of posts recently! I've been busy with work and school starting back so I haven't found much time to blog. However, since it's that time of the year when everyone is making and trying to keep resolutions, I started thinking about the things I might want to do this year. So, this is a list of some things we'd like to get done around the house in the next year. Some are a little more realistic than others... But here we go!

2012 House Goals
- Finalize design plan for formal living room
- Find/order furniture, paint, and decorate formal living room
- Tile backsplash in kitchen
- Update landscaping in front yard
- Media room layout and design plan
- Build built-in day bed/ window seat in media room
- Resod front yard grass
- Add better storage and organization in laundry room
- Finish decorating master bedroom
- Paint and organize garage

I'll go into more details on a few of these very soon!

Some of these are big projects, others will have a large impact with minimal effort. I'm excited to see what happens, I hope you'll stay with us and keep reading!

Happy 2012!!

Happy New Year everyone! I can't believe December has already come and gone... it's January! I hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend, we have had a lot of fun celebrating in NY.   We went to Butter in NYC on New Year's Eve and it was fabulous!  We had a delicious four course meal with lots of champagne and cocktails througout the night. It was a fun party, complete with a great DJ, party hats and tiarras, and a champagne toast while we watched the ball drop at midnight. It was a really wonderful night.

I've been wanting to do a year in review post, but didn't feel like spending a ton of time on the post until I saw this post on According to Ashley. I thought it seemed fun so I'll try it out, with a few modifications ;).  Here it goes:

Favorite Songs of 2011: 

The Trouble with Girls, Scotty McCreery  

I went to Garner HS for one year, so it was really cool to see the school and people we know in the music video.

Favorite Movies of 2011:


Crazy Stupid Love



Midnight in Paris

These movies are really good, I hope you have a chance to watch them. I especially recommend Midnight in Paris because it was only in a few theatres, but it had amazingly good reviews. It makes me want to go back to Paris ASAP!

Favorite TV Shows of 2011:

Body of Proof

Modern Family

Once Upon a Time

 



Bones



Gossip Girl


Biggest Accomplishment of 2011:
Graduating with my MS in Biomedical Engineering from Duke in December

Favorite Vacation or Trip of 2011:

Boston Trip in August

I had a conference at the end of August in Boston and we spent the weekend afterwards in the city. Kevin and I both really loved the city and had so much fun!

Favorite Book of 2011:

I didn't have that much time to read many books in 2011, but The Help was really good!

Best Purchase of 2011:


Our first house!

We started looking at houses in February and we closed at the end of April on a house that we really love.

Favorite Beauty Purchase of 2011:


Urban Decay Naked Palette

This was a Christmas gift, not really a purchase, but it's so great! The colors are really pretty and the brush works really well.

Best Gift of 2011:

Kevin got me an iPad for my birthday in June. I've really enjoyed it and love the iCloud features that I can sync stuff back and forth with my iPhone.

Most Popular Blog Post of 2011:
Kitchen Reveal - http://newlywedmcgees.blogspot.com/2011/06/kitchen-reveal.html

Favorite DIY Project of 2011:

Dining Room Curtains

No-sew curtains for the dining room.  Link Here

Best Home Rennovation Project of 2011:

Painted Kitchen Cabinets

Painting our kitchen cabinets. It was a long and intensive process, but we love the outcome. Link Here.

Favorite New Recipe of 2011:

Cherry Limeade Jello Shots

 I made these Cherry Limeade Jello Shots for our Christmas paty. They were a modification on the original Lemon Drop Jello Shots, but they were really good!

Favorite Restaurant of 2011:

Butter Restaurant

 Butter in NYC. We first discovered Butter last January and we've been 3 times this year. It's a really neat restaurant and has amazing food. Alex Guarneschelli, from the Food Network is the chef there.

Favorite Local Restaurant of 2011:

Sushi Iwa

Sushi Iwa in Apex, NC.  I love this restaurant. It's so close to where we live, but it's also really good and inexpensive. They have Buy One, Get One sushi all the time and great drink specials.  They even offer BOGO sushi for takeout, which most places don't do, so it's amazing!

Best Moment of 2011:



Cooking my first turkey!

Our Thanksgiving Tablescape

Hosting Thanksgiving in our new house with almost all of our family. It was really great experience and we had lots of good food and fun.

Hope you had a great 2011, like us! I can't wait to see what this new year brings!