Living Room, a work in progress

I love things clear cut. You decorate a room and then you enjoy it. You buy all the accessories at the same time and then look at them. You plan the whole room at once, and then put it together in one weekend. 

As I've tried to let go of that a little, our living room is the best example of how bits and pieces come together over time. Before we moved in, we had the popcorn ceiling removed, the walls and trim painted professionally, and then we replaced the ceiling fan. The couches are a hand me down from Bean's brother, and we purchased the rug early on. The coffee table is a hand me down from friends.

The biggest struggle was figuring out what to do with the windows. I like things simple, not fussy, and I wasn't sure what that was. I love the light coming in, but we need a little privacy from our neighbors peeking in at us watching TV at night. So I threw up these old Ikea curtains on tension rods just for privacy. And then they've stayed there for 2 years. Until now!

I love how we kept the beams the original color. I know lots of people would wrap these in cedar or something rustic, but I like them the way they are, especially the way they connect with the walls near the fireplace.

Both of us have always loved exposed brick in a home and we got a whole wall of it! The hearth runs the length of the wall, so we just left it as is. No, we don't have foam bumpers on the edge, and never have. I'm a firm believer that it's up to the child to learn how to live in the parent's environment. It's not my job to hover over my child preventing any accident from happening.

Real talk: our coffee table always looks like that. I leave my shoes in there, cups for days, and library books galore. I did arrange the pillows for you.

I love our built-ins! The shelves were painted before we moved in and it was great being able to just decorate them. The boxes have cards received from loved ones for specific occasions: birthdays, graduation, funny stuff, sad stuff, and so on. Yes, there is also a large picture of our daughter at 6 months old in a bird cage. It makes me laugh and creeps Bean out.

We do change the mantle decor for the holiday season, which I love. Here I'm just displaying my second attempt at keeping an orchid alive. I love the blues we had going on, but wanted to throw in some mustard with it. I painted the flower pot for that purpose. See also the couch pillows.

I also love white knick knacks. We have 3 owls that are so funny; they are representing "See No Evil", "Hear No Evil" and "Speak No Evil". We have wedding pictures of our friends where we stood up for them, and of course several photos of our girl. I'm not afraid to change these out as we see fit.
If you open the back of any frame, you are sure to find several other photos that were previously displayed!

The TV stand used to be our bar at the old house and now it just holds books and kid toys. I'm obsessed with this Picasso print of Blue Nude. She's got some yellow and pink tones, and we decided to pull out yellow since neither of us is too crazy for pink. In fact, I can't stand pink. (Why are most clothes for girls pink?! let's avoid that topic for today.) When we purchased this canvas, I found myself staring at it instead of whatever TV show I was watching. It fits our space perfectly.

Here's another view of the stop-gap Ikea curtains. I can't wait to show you the new blinds and curtains we are installing this week! Stay tuned!