Living Room "Befores" Part 1: Couch and Rug

I'm working with my friend and interior designer, Valerie, from Vj Interiors, on the living room. It's really interesting (read: interesting and tough) adding someone into my creative mix when decorating my own home, because I'm so used to doing everything myself. I'm really excited for the polish and cohesion she's helping me bring to the room, since I am definitely all over the place, but seeing things through her eyes is a really different experience for me! She's brought a lot of great ideas to the room: ones that are completely amazing to me that I had never thought of, but I've found that I am a bit of a "function over form" type of girl and she is the opposite! I know we'll meet in the middle in a happy, happy place, and I'll end up with a "magazine worthy" room that is beautiful and functional.

I'll spend the next few posts giving you some of the plan and a lot of "before" pictures. I wanted to wait in posting this stuff, because it's kind of premature. I know I won't have any good "afters" right away...but I'm hoping that putting these "befores" out for all of you will get me motivated to actually complete some of these projects sooner than later!

These are my current curtains that are kind of serving as our color palate and inspiration: (There will be more layers of window treatments eventually.)

Here's my couch before:  It's plain, blue. The simple plan: add colorful throw pillows.

Finding pictures of pillows I love is easy.  Finding pictures of pillows that I can actually see living with on my very own couch is a little harder. Here's what I'm thinking, though:

Images: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Here's a great inspiration picture, since the couch is nearly the same color as mine! :) I might have to get on this Chaing Mai Dragon bandwagon...I love that print!

from Caitlin Creer Interiors

Here's my rug. It's fine, it was on sale, but it's not quite the look I want for the living room. (Seemingly) Simple plan: Get a new rug.

This is our inspiration rug, and here's one I found at HomeGoods, but it was a little too small.  The style is more traditional than I would have thought would work in the room, but I'm excited to go in this direction. This is where Valerie is really helping me see new possibilities!

I'm excited to see what we really end up finding, purchasing, and installing!


She's also talking me into painting, which I am more open to after seeing the potential new rug...but one step at a time, one step at a time!