When my talented friend Tammy from Pink Peppermint Design asked me to join the Rooms We Love Tour, I knew I had to make it happen! I’ve been so tied up with finishing both bathroom renovations and decorating the nursery that I haven’t had a chance to shoot photos of our living room in awhile.
If you are here from Almafied, welcome and thank you for stopping by! Today I’ll be telling you more about our living room and why we love it so much. Other than the bedroom, we spend the majority of our ordinary lives in this room. Occasionally we host and entertain guests here. I wanted this room to be beautiful, but also functional on a day-to-day basis for our growing family.
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Related: Decorating Our Master Bedroom with Vaulted Ceilings
Let me start off by showing you a “Before” shot of what this room looked like when we moved in.
With this same view, you can see that we took down the wall between our living room and kitchen to make it completely open concept. I think it’s had the biggest impact on our home!
We chose this home because of its high vaulted ceilings, skylights, and large windows. The rest of the home needed a lot of updating, but we knew the bones and layout of the home were perfect.
Here is another “Before” shot of our living room from the same view as above. This was the listing photo from the previous owner, NOT our stuff! Since moving in, we switched the furniture layout, refinished the hardwood floors, whitewashed the brick fireplace, and added the shiplap feature wall.
Ideally, I’d love to arrange our living room with two sofas facing each other and two accent chairs; however, that just wouldn’t work for our family. A sectional gives my husband & I enough space to cuddle and watch movies next to each other which we do often. Our sectional is from Lovesac and all of the pieces are configurable. When guests are coming over, we arrange the sectional as pictured, but on a day-to-day basis, we keep four pieces together that make one large lounger.
While I’d prefer a white or light tan sectional, I know that with dark gray I don’t have to constantly worry about ruining it. We are now entering a phase with young children so I think I will wait a few years before going any lighter. Instead, I’ve added bright, gorgeous pillows that I can switch out at any time.
One day I want to add some tall, dramatic drapes to our windows. However, we have quite a few windows so I’ve put it off due to the high cost. Since our house backs up to the woods, privacy is not an issue. I also don’t want to hinder any natural light so even if I add them I’ll never actually close them.
I love our shiplap wall today as much as the first day it was installed. We needed to dress up these 14-foot walls! This shiplap has a bright, modern feel than a rustic, farmhouse feel.
If you’ve been wondering about the giant palm tree in front of the window, it’s only there during the winter. Maryland temperatures reach below freezing so we have to in order to keep them alive until spring and summer. Once it starts to warm up, we move them back outside to surround our pool.
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You won’t believe how far our living room has come. Here was our original furniture and decor when we first moved in!
Holy moly, Kelly! What a transformation! I can’t believe the difference taking down that wall made! Your home is so beautiful!
XO Courtney
Thank you, Courtney!! I always appreciate your thoughtful comments – you are always so supportive 🙂
Kelly, wow that transformation was amazing! The open concept in here looks great and wow your vaulted ceilings are beautiful! I love the added shiplap in here also! It’s the perfect room to hang all day!
Thank you, Alma. I know you are a fellow shiplap lover too 🙂 Loved your pics by the way – they are always so well shot!
You are so lucky with those high ceilings and all the light, what a gorgeous transformation. That wall is amazing! XO, Amy
Thank you, Amy! We are so lucky to get so much natural light. It’s a must when home searching!
GORGEOUS! I’m so glad I stumbled upon this post in one of my Tailwind Tribes! Your honesty about your sectional gave me a sigh of relief. I just bought us the Ben Sectional on Wayfair (which is beautiful), but I know one sofa with two chairs would probably be more Pinterest worthy. BUT a sectional just makes so much more sense for my family. You have confirmed that I made the right decision. Thank you! And thank you for allowing us to virtually tour your beautiful home. I hope to continue stumbling upon your content in the tribe 🙂
Thank you, Shelby. What a small world 🙂 Just took a look at your new sectional – I love it! Sometimes it’s tough to find a balance between Pinterest-perfect and family-perfect. One day (18 years away) I’ll have a more “formal” living room, haha. Until then, we’ll just own it!! XO – Kelly
Kelly I love this room! I love your style and all the clean lines and lovely layering you do with such beautiful elements and pieces. Your sofa looks so comfy and those pillows are the cutest. What a fabulous transformation you’ve made!!! xoxo
Wow, Kelly! I don’t think I’ve ever seen the before shots of this room – what a transformation! It looks beautiful!
Hi!! Your loving broom looks GREAT! Can you tell me what fabric/print your lovesac sectional is??
Darn phone. Living room***
Hi Demi! Thank you 🙂 The fabric on our couch is the Gray Slub Tweed. It holds up really well – we love it! XO, Kelly
Gorgeous! What paint color do you have on your walls and shiplap?
Hi Jena, thank you! 🙂 Our wall color is Benjamin Moore Big Bend Beige and our shiplap is Sherwin Williams Highly Reflective White. XO, Kelly
I just bought a home and we are about to refinish the floors and paint the walls of our vaulted living room, which is a lot like yours. I love your color! For the floors, did you paint the shoe molding white? We’re trying to decide if we should stain the shoe molding to match the floors (which is the traditional look) or paint white to blend in with the crown molding. Also, did you white wash your fireplace and if so do you have any tips? The previous owners painted our brick a strange tan color and I think bringing it closer to white will be a game changer.
Thanks in advance. Love your home!
Hi Lauren, we painted our shoe molding white, and opted not to stain it the same color as the floors. I think painting it white would really complement your crown molding and make it pop! We did whitewash our fireplace ourselves. I have a full tutorial + before/after with the product we used on my blog. Here’s the link to my post: http://thegreenspringhome.com/blog/how-to-whitewash-your-brick-fireplace-with-milk-paint/
Thanks so much for your kind words & following along!
XO, Kelly