A living room transformation

Welcome back to the before and after of my new apartment. As you may recall, it started out pretty gross. Mold problems. Holes in the wall. And I’m so pleased with how my mostly DIY efforts turned out.

Today, let’s talk about my living room.

Before

This is after cleaning but before anything else. And I knew the bones were great: a beautiful wood floor, huge floor-to-ceiling doors/windows, and an open floor plan.

Measuring out the furniture

Before anything else, I took some painters tape and measured out all my potential furniture on the floor with overlapping squares. I figured out the right rug size, how wide of a couch I could handle, and where my kitchen island would sit.

I went armed with this info into the thrift stores, Ikea shopping carts, and Etsy shops of my future.

Red couch!

The first element that made it into the living room was my unusual couch. A thrift-store find for about 80 bucks (plus a transport fee) that I had to steam clean three times before it was anything less than gross.

I also bought new couch legs (though I haven’t gotten around to changing them out yet) to up the wow factor. But the thing that really caught me was the color. I love the pop of boldness.

Paint tests

Normally, paint would have come before the couch for me. But I fell in love with the couch and the paint happened later. In fact, it was the last paint color I chose for this open space. I committed to the deep green kitchen, then the succulent green entryway first.

And at first I thought this area would be a kind of beige color. A white with yellow undertones.

As soon as I had the trim painted, I knew I was wrong. This was far too yellow against the green.

And so I pivoted. Bought some liters of plain white paint and added just a hint of green – just enough that it looks white or green depending on the light at that moment.

Building off those first elements

With the kitchen decided, the entryway set, and the first two elements of the living room in place, everything else built off that.

I chose a cream rug with blue accents and a look that complimented the tile vibe of the kitchen cabinets from Etsy.

I found two gray Ikea armchairs secondhand and bought them cheap. I stumbled upon a 70% sale on a coffee table with a gray and white tile top that complemented the kitchen without matching it.

And I added pillows in mostly blue, white, and greens with just a pop of yellow to give the space another little something.

Finally: I chose light wood-colored basket lights for the walls, which match well with the light woods in the kitchen across the room (and I used the same light in the entryway to tie it all together).