Hi babes! I hope life is treating you well. I'm flying in with a post about the revamps we've been doing to our living room. I don't think I've ever written about this here, but I've always felt frustrated about going straight from my childhood home into the home of my boyfriend. Not because I wish I hadn't lived with him, but because his home was filled with stuff that had links to him, his ex-partner and his family.
There wasn't much room for me, especially since we didn't have the means for an overhaul. In addition, I never felt inspired to make the place my own, so in a way I always felt detached from our shared home. Over the years I added touches of my style, but it's only since the past month or so that we've been making real efforts to change our living room in any fundamental way. How have we done this? By removing clutter (mostly storage racks with old books, videos and DVDs) and adding plants and carefully picked decoration that references shared memories of ours.
One thing I always wanted to do was create a gallery wall, but seeing our space being all-round "meh" demotivated me from making real effort like nailing holes into our wall. I finally ended up picking the Magic Mountain and Street of Palm Springs posters in 30x40cm, and the Joshua Tree Road poster in 50x70cm. I used some cut-to-size pieces of paper (down-scaled of course) to create an arrangement of the posters, and to see which other pieces of mine would complement the set. I ended up adding my own poster from Paris in a 40x50 gold frame, and the Joshua Tree park souvenir we brought from our last trip to California. The entire gallery wall represents some of our favorite shared experiences, and I love how the posters look together!
We also bought a new couch! Our old one was from Ikea and served us well for about 10 years, but it had definitely had its time. We're absolutely in love with this green velvet beauty from Made.com. I love how our living room is becoming this contemporary mix of boho and mid-century-modern influences, while also incorporating some elements of what I remember loving about our childhood home - my mom always loved plants. I still want to add some rotan pieces, ideally second hand, but no rush. I'm enjoying the process (maybe a bit too much - always spending too much money at plant shops!).
BEFORE (when the couch was still relatively fresh)//AFTER
The storage unit with my boyfriend's CD collection is probably the best representation of the shift in our interior. By pushing back some of the CD boxes and creating space on the shelves, I've been able to add my own pieces and break up the heaviness of the unit.
BEFORE // AFTER
We also swapped out our old yellow and blue carpet for this white one from IKEA. Makes the space so much calmer!
And we FINALLY put up these IKEA hexagon mirrors we bought, like, 5 years ago.
So yeah, I'm extremely happy. I'm actually eager to just be at home and enjoy our space now, the room feels more spacious, and the feng shui just feels right, man. The whole process has definitely been a form of self-care. I hope you have a space of your own where you can unwind and feel at peace, surrounded by things you love.
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