ok but first, can we talk about the elephant in the room? the way this blog looks is simply not ideal. I need to figure this out. anyways, without further ado – the living room.

so basically after the foyer, the scope of work on the main floor kind of drops off. it’s less “I need to repaint and replace the flooring” and more “I need to dust, declutter and decorate”. (wait, am I on to something snazzy? I’m going to refer to spaces that need this minimal treatment the triple d).

our house lovely, it has such character and when we moved in we put in a ton of work to strip away the grey on grey on grey (sidenote, grey or gray? am I exposing myself as a Canadian for grey with an ‘e’, is it a regional thing like favourite?). we put in new floor, painted everything creamy white (groundbreaking I know, but I do love it), and painted the kitchen cabinets a deep off white/ beige. the previous owners goal seemed to be modernizing full stop, our goal was to update and keep the charm of this old house. all that is to say, our living room has great moulding, a window seat, and a built in bookcase. it had a lot going for it as is, so all we did was freshen up and bring a wack ton of ikea furniture and wicker baskets as per. (my god I love a wicker basket, sorry not sorry.)

my main qualm with this space, was that in my endeavour to make it cozy, it did become cluttered. I fancy myself an avid reader, and I love the feel of a book and the thrill of collecting really good thrifted books (especially ones I can lift from my grandparents shelves), so suffice to say, I have a large collection. It spanned the whole bookshelf, but lately the wicker baskets have slowly taken over shelf after shelf, burgeoning with toys. I did mention this home was small right? this is the command center of our house. it’s the playroom, storage room, family room, living room, and I’m even in here typing away. everything goes down in here. right now I’m looking at a baby gym and a play pizza shop crowded in front of the window seat, mini hockey stocks strewn in the corner, a diaper bag dumped on the armchair (my bad), a giant stuffed horse laying prone next to it. declutter. and I don’t mention the book because I’m wistful for their resurgence, the collection is it’s own kind of clutter too. especially when they’re displayed below a gallery wall.

I know that I’m going to look back on this small space jammed with life and reminisce on these days, this is truly a season of life I adore. but working towards giving our family something more doesn’t mean I cherish this time any less. that being said, the triple d plan:

the couch we have, including the matching arm chair, they do just need new covers. ours are stained with splotches of apple sauce, dog drool, and ??? when I went online, I noticed that ikea no longer sells the covers we have, so I tried to fool myself into liking this kilanda light beige cover, but as I see it here, I kind of actually love it. it works well.

the coffee table and end table we have similar versions of that I nabbed off marketplace years ago (but my word, lighthouse has gorgeous furniture if I ever cash in a lottery ticket and want to spare myself the journeys).

so where does this leave us, we need a new rug (I have acquired that exact one), and I really want a better collection of accent pillows. I have this habit of thinking I need to replace all my pillows at once, so I just end up buying like 4-5 different pillow covers from ikea. I want to take my time with this and just get really nice pillows as I see them. I love these ones, but I think I can thoughtfully recreate this vibe with trips to homesense/marshalls/winners and even Indigo really hits when it comes to pillow covers. so deep green and dusty mauve is the vibe.

art. I adore that canoeist painting. overall, I just really want to up my wall hangings. I have been picking up pieces over the years at thrift stores as I see some, and replacing my chunky black square frame Ikea collection piece by piece. whether I can curate a collection for this room remains to be seen, but what I really want is even just one great piece to replace the gallery wall. it will need to be large so I think it will take some time. and since this is something we’re bringing with us, I need to love it like I love this canoeist (who is unfortunately too small for this purpose, but maybe I can track down a print…).

the only piece of furniture I want to bring into the space, is a small round pedestal table. I have a vision of putting it in front of the window so that this space feels a little more intentional than overflow seating. what I find myself looking for when I creep house listings, is not just a count of rooms, but spaces, little functional pockets within a room. if I bring a table and pop down a little vase, some coasters, and a sudoku book, this room went from a strictly seating area, to a seating area with a reading/homework/whatever nook. and I think with our house being tight on space, creating spaces could help. I think of it in terms of photos getting taken for the listing, it’s not just a wide shot of the living room, maybe it’s a tighter shot of the space where our couch and chair is, and then a tighter space of our window seat nook with the bookcase. see where my head’s at?

while we’re a few years off from needing this nook, I’m sure it will make a good platform for a picasso tile car ramp in the meanwhile.