Making Progress

I know I've only really been blogging about the living room recently, but that's what we're focusing on right now. So, hopefully you can hang on with me as we complete this room before we move on to the next one!

Our sofa for this room was delivered this weekend. I'm really happy with it, it's really comfortable and pretty too!  It's ivory velvet and will look great with our curtains. I had originally planned to put the sofa in front of the window, before I picked out the sofa and had it delivered. However, after seeing it in front of the window, it sticks out too far into the doorway and walkway of the room. So, I switched the plan around and now the sofa will be on the long wall of the room, below a gallery wall of frames.  Here are some pictures:

We also installed the new chandelier for this room on Saturday! This was quite a bit of work, taking down the huge old fan was not fun, but we were really impressed with everything when the chandelier was up and sparkling.

I ordered the fabric for the curtains and I'm hoping it will be shipped soon so we can make the curtains and get them hung. I think this will have a big impact on making all of the room elements make sense!

I'm still on the hunt for the perfect chairs to go in front of the window.... and I'll keep searching. We may start working on the bookcases next.  I'm debating on doing something like these built-ins by Centsational Girl, but we'll see.

Surprise, Surprise...

I finally picked the wall color for our formal living room.  It might (not) surprise you that I picked a gray paint color. I sat down with my mom this weekend and we poured over the millions of paint chips that I've collected as possibilities for the room.  After weeding out the crazy colors it came down to a choice between a bold color or a more subdued, neutral. I just couldn't see the room going the way I wanted with a green wall, well, not one that would match my fabric. So, I gathered the gray options and chose from there.

I painted some squares on the wall to visualize Sherwin Williams' Comfort Gray, SW Silvermist, and SW Sedate Gray with the fabric.  I ended up picking the SW Sedate Gray because the others were a little too blue, and I want to downplay the blue more in this room.  So, with Sedate Gray selected, we picked up our brushes and started painting!!

The color is actually really difficult to photograph and looks different at different times throughout the day. Sometimes it looks silvery, sometimes it looks beige.  I think it will look great with the curtains!

We're making a lot of progress on this room! Our sofa will be delivered this weekend and I've started searching for some accessories and other furniture. I haven't picked out the arm chairs yet, but hopefully we'll find them soon!  I also bought a chandelier, which I think will look amazing :) The chandelier I wanted has been sold out at Home Depot for a long time, but I actually found a new one on eBay! It should be here this week, I hope it looks as great in person and in our space! Here's a picture of someone else's, although they used weird bulbs, haha!

 

Pinterest Project!

A couple weekends ago I made a project from Pinterest inspiration but never blogged about it.

I was looking for something else to go on the long wall in my dining room, next to the art that I have up.  I originally thought sconces would be nice there, but then I was unable to find anything that I liked.  I had seen the idea of hanging flowers in glass on the wall on Pinterest and this particular photo jumped out at me.

Pinterest

I decided to make something similar and it turned out to be a fun and inexpensive project.  I bought two silvery frames at ACMoore, some thin plywood sheets (1/16th inch), large mason jars, and thick silver floral wire.

I first scored the plywood with an razor blade to allow fit inside the frame.  Then, I painted the plywood a light blue gray color, Behr Light French Gray. I had some of this leftover from when we were deciding kitchen paint colors ;) Then, I wrapped the floral wire around the neck of the mason jar multiple times to be able to hold the jar up.  I drilled small holes through the wood sheets so that I could string the wire through to the backside. I tied knots in the wire and fed the wires back through to strengthen their hold on the jar.   I then hung these on the wall like a regular picture frame. I'm excited with how they came out. I plan to put fresh flowers in the jars often, but will have silk flowers there when I don't.

Paint Color Update

I picked up some Benjamin Moore paint chips yesterday. There are so many variations of green paint and they're all so different, it's crazy! So, I'm going to look at these for a while and maybe get some samples to try on the walls this weekend.

While at Benjamin Moore, I took some pictures on my iPhone of the fabric with the big paint chips. Guilford Green was one of the best, although some of the darker shades appeared pretty different on a big sample.

Here's a picture of some of my favorites in the natural light of the living room. I tried to pick colors which had a little more gray and were less intense. I want the wall to have a little bit of color, but not be so in your face, like the Shagreen was ;)

From left to right: SW Celery, BM Soft Ferm, BM Fernwood Green,
BM Camouflage, BM Guilford Green, BM Nantucket Breeze

I think I like Guilford Green the most right now, but I'm not sure if it's still too green. I think this is where it will be nice to see the paint on the actual wall.  You can see how these all stack up against Shagreen, it's the 2nd color on the first strip on the left, they're a little more subdued.

Here are some pictures of rooms I found online with some of these wall colors.

Guilford Green - source

Camouflage - source

Fernwood Green (top) - source

Soft Fern - source

So, it will still be a while before we paint everything, but I feel like we're on the right track... to a calming gray-er green.  

Decisions, Decisions...

I've managed to make some small progress in our living room, but I'm still struggling to pull the trigger on any of the major pieces.  I think a lot of this has to do with not being 100% positive about my previous selections. So, I did some more shopping and browsing this weekend to explore my options. 

As the main color palette inspiration, I have finally decided on the P. Kaufmann leaf fabric for the curtains.  Here's a picture of the pattern in a computer simulated curtain panel:

  

I really like the colors in this fabric. It has a light blue background similar to the walls in our living room and kitchen, gray vines like the color in our dining room, but also brings in creams, beiges and light green.  My original plan for the room was to have these curtains as color inspiration, neutral furniture with accent pillows, and green walls.  However, I might be reconsidering that now.

Fabric with Shagreen by Sherwin Williams

Over the weekend, I got a paint sample of the color green that I picked out to match the curtains. I chose Shagreen by Sherwin Williams. I painted large squares of the green paint on our walls to see how we liked the paint color.

However, I wasn't too thrilled with how it looked. And, to make it worse, I'm not exactly sure why! I love green, but part of me feels like this green is too harsh with the rest of our color palette in the house. When the natural window light comes in the windows, it feels almost neon! So, I have a dilemma. I need to decide if I want something bold or more neutral...  One good thing going for the green paint is that I plan to have a big wall of white bookshelves on the main wall across from the door and by the time I have all of the other accents up on the wall, the green probably won't be as overwhelming.

Fabric with Mindful Gray by Sherwin Williams

I was curious, so I put the swatch of fabric up against the walls in the dining room, and I think it looks pretty good. The thing is, it's just a different style, more neutral colors and makes the fabric more subdued. This way, it brings out the blue a lot more, which I'm not sure if I want that... we already have a ton of blue in the house.

I'm also trying to make some furniture decisions at the same time as the wall color selection. I found a cream velvet sofa that I really like, but it's a little more modern (or maybe retro) than my usual style. I think that's a good thing and will lead to more of an eclectic look in the room, but I'm not sure.  Here are two pictures of the sofa, what do you think?

source

source

If I do buy this sofa, I will probably go with two simple arm chairs that are linen or beige. I haven't found the perfect ones of these yet, so I'm still searching. I did take a picture of the curtain fabric up against a khaki/beige fabric this weekend, I think this will tie in the colors nicely.

While out shopping on Saturday, I did find some cute accent fabrics for pillows at JoAnn Fabrics!  Here's a picture of the curtain fabric with two others that coordinated nicely.

Robert Allen Home-Square Pegs in Mist (L) & Annie Selke-Pearls in Citrus (R)

So, what are your thoughts on these different options? Do you like the green paint (or maybe another shade of green) or should I go with a neutral paint color like the Mindful Gray? Like the sofa or color palette? Any thoughts and opinions would be greatly appreciated!!