There’s something about being nearly a year into living here that makes it feel like we’ve accomplished a fair amount of “evolution” over the last 357 days (not that I’m counting…). I guess it’s because living somewhere for a month isn’t really a lot of time for tweak-age, but twelve of those in a row – well, it’s enough time to get things going. Like living with a floor plan for 11 months (just to be suuuuure) and then knocking out a wall that we’ve wanted gone from day one:
It’s also enough time to make a few furniture and accessory changes as we transition from working with what we have (like random stuff carried over from our first house) and first-instinct choices to a few more thought-out decisions. Yup, these things apparently take time – at least in our experience (remember this post on that subject?). So here’s the story about a pretty sizeable three-fer tweak of epic rug, ottoman, and chair proportions.
We haven’t made any major furniture/accessory purchases since the just-moved-in phase when we got our sectional, our first rug, our bed, and our big dining room table. Then we went on a building/DIY kick for the next almost-year (making our $104 console table and our $124 wall-to-wall double desk and saving nearly 4K by laying our own stone patio and getting a ton of estimates to save 3K on our kitchen wall-opening). We’ve mostly just been picking up super inexpensive secondhand furnishings since moving in (like our $35 desk chairs, $25 dining chairs, and four secondhand kitchen cabinets for our in-progress remodel for under $100).
So after many months of building up the savings account and waiting for things that we loved to come along, it felt nice to actually buy them. And since we had some “store credit” towards Joss & Main from curating a sale with them as a side gig (more on that here), we loved that we could put that towards our living room tweaks, especially because it’s one of our most used rooms, so we’ll definitely notice and appreciate it. But now onto what we tweaked and why…
For the last almost-year we have loved our fluffy green shag rug (it was great for a wiggly crawling baby and a wobbly toddler – and was so thick and inviting that many an adult found themselves sitting/lying on the floor). But there are a few issues that have popped up as Clara has grown.
# 1. Let’s just say that finding milk dripped and goldfish or cheerios crushed into our plush rug was less than pleasing. Yes, we’re one of those casual families who doesn’t have a no-food-in-the-living-room rule (I mean, peanut butter & jelly or a bagel with cream cheese isn’t living-room approved, but dry crackers and a sippy cup of milk are). That’s just how we both grew up and we really appreciate the this-house-is-not-a-museum vibe, so we plan to keep it that way. And although vacuuming or a bit of scrubbing (for spilled milk) got ‘er done (and Burger was awesome about hunting down the occasional goldfish before we even knew it’d gone missing) the rug was still a bit higher maintenance than a lower pile one would be now that we have an energetic toddler.
#2. The size. In our first house both our living room and den rugs were just 5 x 8′ since the rooms there were so small. So although we knew that our new living room was much larger, somehow an 8 x 11’ rug sounded like it had to be big enough for our 25 foot long room. Well… try as we might to “adjust” to it, it always felt a little small (we’re definitely still learning how to decorate a larger space). Like our giant sectional was just baaaarely contained on the boundaries of the rug:
So when I saw this giant (10 x 14!) 100% wool rug for $599 (down from $798) on Joss & Main I got excited. And nervous. That’s not exactly peanuts around here. But it’s a huge rug – and rugs that size that we like are usually 1-2K (which made me fake ugly-cry on at least three occasions). It almost felt impossible to find something extra large, low pile, and our style that didn’t end in three zeros. So $599 started to sound pretty good. At least good enough to contemplate for a little while.
After mulling it over for a few hours, I decided to show John to see what he thought (we have a full agreement agreement, so we don’t buy anything that we don’t both love). That way if he nixed it I could just close the window and stop thinking about it. But when I went to show it to John, he had it up on his screen (he also gets Joss & Main alerts and had clicked on that rug and left it open on his computer to “talk to me about it” a little later). Crazy, huh? We were both secretly mulling over the same rug. It was meant to be. So we gritted our teeth and put in our order. I’m not going to say that we didn’t have sweaty palms, but we went for it.
Since we’d been temporarily using a too-small placeholder-ottoman that didn’t have storage which used to reside in our first bedroom as a side table, we also found ourselves pining after this big tufted leather storage ottoman. Again, it’s not exactly a cheap addition to the room. At all. But nearly fourteen cubic feet of additional hidden storage was a huge draw (it’s almost 3 x 3 x 1.5 with an easy-open hinged top). Of course we also appreciated that it’s a correctly-sized counterpart to our giant sectional (as opposed to looking like a too-small donut hole) and that it isn’t hard and pointy for little toddler heads (but can be used for serving food & drinks with the addition of a nice big tray). Yup, she’s versatile. And we never could have sprung for it at 900 beans, but at over $500 off… well…
And then somehow this $169 chair (down from$339) said “how you doin’?”…
…which was especially convenient since the parson’s chair that we purchased for $70 from Target about four years ago was looking a little rough due to tons of use which led to one side of the faux-leather cracking so it looked like this:
So we waited patiently at the door for everything to arrive, pausing only to eat, sleep, change the baby, work on the kitchen, and blog. When everything arrived pretty much at the same time, it was sorta like Christmas. Literally, it kind of was (we declared these items to be our Christmas gifts to each other for last year, this year, and next year). Psst- pardon the rug wiggles, we still need to get a rug pad. And as for the art swap, I meant to blog about that a while back. It’s actually extra burlap-ish fabric that I used instead of the colorful paper. I love that it has more texture and doesn’t compete with the bright pillows and accessories.
Spending that kind of money on a rug and ottoman was definitely not a drop in the bucket for cheap-os like us. Heck even $169 for a chair isn’t usually our MO (we’re no strangers to spending $20-35 on thrift store or craigslist chairs). But it did feel nice to add up the sale savings ($199 + $521 + $170 = a whopping $890!). And more importantly, since we’ve worked our buns off to DIY so many projects over the last 11 months it meant that we were able to save a pretty nice chunk of change, so our bank account was thankfully just fine with the living room spree (we don’t like to buy anything we can’t immediately pay off – more on that here).
Of course we’re hoping to reuse the old round ottoman and the old living room rug in other still-evolving spaces (you know we’re use-what-you-got fans) and we might even try slipcovering the faux-leather chair in some fun fabric for another spot as well. So we’ll have to keep you posted on those cha-cha-cha-changes too. Of course we still have about a million other working-with-what-we-have items going on, like the wrong sized rug in the office, a too-small TV and media cabinet in the living room (we hope to build a nice media center to balance out our chunky distressed console table) along with many completely-missing elements (like a large buffet/console table with art and a rug in the entryway off of the dining area and an entire playroom and sunroom that have yet to be tackled along with all of our bathrooms). But we’ll get there someday.
Knowing that our first house took us 4.5 years to complete is a great comfort to us, because it takes away the we-want-it-all-done-now pressure. These things take time. But we’re feeling really good with our one-year-in progress (see a lot of that here). How about you? Do you have a “magic number” of months or years after living somewhere when you finally start to feel more settled and “evolved” (after feeling around in the dark for a few months while you get your bearings)?
Psst- To anyone looking to purchase the rug, ottoman, or chair – Joss and Main has flash sales (only lasting a few days) so of course by the time we got this stuff in the mail and took pics they weren’t for sale anymore. But lots of their stuff can be found on wayfair.com (though it’s not usually as heavily discounted over there) or you can get on Joss & Main’s mailing list here (that’s an instant invite, so you don’t have to wait). Hope it helps!
Crystal says
love love the changes. the room is much more polished now!
Laura says
You guys rock, the room looks fantastic. Enjoy it!
Kay says
John: The only man I know that would spend that kind of money on an ottoman before a bigger TV. Lucky you Sherry.
YoungHouseLove says
Haha- the irony is that I’ve been begging for a bigger TV and John’s the one who’s dragging his feet. Hilarious, right? The guy loves to wait for a deal.
xo,
s
Bethie says
AMAZEBALLS
Vicki says
WOW! Now, I thought your living room looked just perfect before, but these additions are fantastic. I also thought that white ottoman looked way too big in the store photo – shows what I know, it fits perfectly. Well done, you two. It all looks super profesh.
Maria says
I love the new additions. The space looks so much more sophisticated.
Amorie says
Looks great, but needs a big potted floor plant next to the ottoman :)
Amorie says
oops, I meant next to the sectional, instead of the small ottoman!
diana says
Sherry And John,
My only reaction is: Oooohhh!
I Understand your living room. Lately, I’ve put on some weight, like two dress sizes up, and I’m only, slowly now starting to change my wardrobe. It feels so nice to have the right sized pieces. And I look so less fat in the correctly sized things, the same goes for your living room! Also, the huge change in style is going with it’s proportions better than the playful previous style. Love it, love it!
Sherry, about the “on the brink of 30” thing: since I started making kids, I feel so much more at ease with my age and the time passing, that I round my age in my head to every 5. I was 43 and a half when a doctor asked “Age?” and my answer was 45!!! Who does that?!?! Anyway, you, Sherry, look like sixteen going on seventeen!
YoungHouseLove says
Aw thanks Diana! For so long people thought I was a teenager (got IDed at R rated movies when I was 25, etc) but lately people don’t ask for my license anymore when I get a glass of wine at dinner. It’s definitely an adjustment but I’m getting used to it! Haha.
xo,
s
Meghan says
Are you guys ever surprised by which posts get the most comments? If I had a blog, I bet I’d be obsessively checking to see what people are into the most. Just curious if you’re ever surprised!
YoungHouseLove says
Haha- yes! All the time! It’s so interesting to us to see what folks love to chat about!
xo,
s
Lindsay says
I wondered this same thing! Glad you asked, Meghan!
Tirsa says
I LOVE the updates to your living room. (I stared and stared at that very rug on Joss & Main because I loved it so much, but couldn’t think of where it would work, so I had to pass. Ha, ha) Now your living room looks really pulled together. Aaah, the feeling of having a room looking great. (I’ll catch up with my own some day…. :)
Can’t wait to see close-ups of your new art and read about how you made it.
Amanda K says
The new rug is gorgeous! It’s amazing how the change in size makes the whole room look different. Excellent move!
Erin says
I liked the room before, but love it, now. The scale of the rug is perfect, as is the scale of the ottoman. Funny how the slight tweak of color makes your pillows look completely different (even though they’re the same!). Yay for a kid friendly room!
Justine says
so. much. better. It was great before, but those few changes make it look crazy better. Amazing what scale and proportion do, eh? Enjoy!
Anne says
Speaking of Joss and Main, did you see the Signature by Strouds collection? They have a pillow made out of the same fabric as your dining room curtains. I feel like such a stalker for noticing that.
YoungHouseLove says
Isn’t that funny? Love it so much!
xo,
s
Kayla says
Looks so wonderful, much improved! How exciting!
Kate says
Love the changes to your place! I never really felt the old rug (to each their own…) but the new one is great!
I felt really set after 2 years in our apartment. I felt like I had come up with the best possible arrangement of things (using what I had or what was cheap) and had things fairly comfortable and decorated. It was kind of an odd feeling to not look around and see tons of stuff I wanted to change.
Of course now we went and bought a house this past summer, so we’re starting all over again! Right away we bought a new (king size!) mattress, kitchen chairs, and some decorative things (curtains, a mirror, a lamp, a hanging light, etc) and bought a new loveseat (a mini-Karl) a couple months later. We also bought a bunch of Craigslist finds right away; a hutch (which I painted), a new table, a futon frame. We were very careful about what we bought, but I still kind of choked with how much money we let go of!
Now I’m trying to be good and slow down a bit and finish up some of the projects that have been waiting or are cheap. On the short list are hanging more wall decorations, building a side table and a bed frame, and painting/spray painting a lot of things (especially lights!). My goal for 2012 is to turn our house into a real home with as little money as possible!
YoungHouseLove says
Aw, it sounds like you’re making great progress! We felt like we were purging money in the beginning (buying our bed, the dining table, the first rug, etc) but then that stuff naturally petered off when we started focusing on building things and secondhand scores and other things that we did slowly over time, so I’m sure it’ll be easier than you think to “be good and slow down” – especially since your goal is awesome. Good luck and have fun!
xoxo,
s
Rachel says
Beautiful! The bigger rug really works with the couch now! I saw you added burlap fabric to the art behind the couch, but are those pictures in the middle of each of them??
YoungHouseLove says
Here’s that post for ya: https://www.younghouselove.com/2011/07/squaring-off/
I’ll have to share more detailed photos of the art (and the ottoman open) soon!
xo,
s
Ginny @ Goofy Monkeys says
I love the changes! The new chair brings some lightness to the corner. And with 2 kids and a pup at home, I hear ya on the shaggy pile rug.
Lisha says
One of my favorite little details about your living room decor is the green and blue pillows on the couch that match the green and blue vases on the desk. You definitely know how to put balance in a room :)
~Lisha
mp says
Your Target chair looks a lot like my leather ottoman! I bought it (and its matching chair) in 2009 after wanting one for decades; however, my pup Bruiser, a cross between a chihuahua and a Jack Russell, has taken a bite out of each! The first upholsterer I approached about fixing it suggested I shoot Bruiser, which ruled him out immediately; luckily, I found another, kinder upholsterer just down the road.
And speaking of fun fabric, I’m thinking of attempting a DIY upholstery job on my beloved office chair. Yes. I said it. Alert the ER!
Ashley says
I saw the art change and immediately thought it must have been with Katie!
Rad Designing says
Oh my goodness, LOVE the new carpet and ottoman! Such a perfect fit. I’ve also been wondering how the ikea couch has been holding up. I love the couch’s look but I just dont trust ikea… i love solid wood pieces and could never bring myself to buy cheaper furniture. Let me know, im super curious to how its holdin up!
YoungHouseLove says
No complaints whatsoever! Still as comfy and handsome as the day we got him!
xo,
s
Michelle says
Who knew a bigger rug would make such a difference. Your living room looks ahh-mazing!
Eve says
Oooooh! Love, love love. I didn’t think the scale of the shag rug was off until I saw the new rug in place. It’s beautiful. Reminds me of the Iznik Dhurrie rug I’ve coveted from West Elm forever, but I like this one even better. Good job!
Catherine says
That looks great! I didn’t think the last rug was too small but something did feel a bit off. The new rug pulls everything together. Definitely worth the extra cash!
Catherine says
Ah! Just have to say, thanks to your sidebar, I now know that there is a Parks and Rec book! I love that show! (so happy Ben and Leslie are together again!)
Anne G. says
What a difference a rug makes!
I also love how everything is starting to tie in together so well — maybe in some unexpected ways? I never would have thought green and grey would work together, but I am loving the way your grey walls work so well with the charcoal sectional, and the light grey desk chair! And how the rug ties in with the pillows and art.
It’s so fun to watch this room evolve.
It helps me to see that I don’t have to love my own living room right now…that I can keep the things I like about it but keep tweaking other things, like the rug, or the wall art, to get the final complete look I want. Or, maybe just continue to make changes to it as my moods and tastes change! :)
Alisa D says
The changes look wonderful. I would love to see a close-up on the revamped frames. What is centered on the burlap-ish material?
YoungHouseLove says
Here’s that post for ya (about what’s in the middle of the burlap): https://www.younghouselove.com/2011/07/squaring-off/
We’ll have to share updated close ups soon!
xo,
s
Piritta says
I love the changes! Loved the before look too, but this looks more polished and the new carpet fills the room so much better.
I also immediately noticed the blue and green thingies on the parsons table, what are they? Can we get a closer look ;)
YoungHouseLove says
Those are ceramic lantern jug things from HomeGoods a while back! I’ll have to share more detailed shots in a future post!
xo,
s
Mao says
LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!
Chrissi says
LOVE the changes!!!! you guys are genius!! posts like this are the reason why I read your blog every single day :)
Heidi says
Just wanted to say I love your changes! You have great taste!!
Daniela Conn says
Wow! What an improvement! I think the living room has evolved so beautifully! I much prefer the new rug and it’s amazing how just these three changes have added a new level of sophistication to the space!
Isabel says
It´s amazing how those changing out the smaller items for their larger cousins actually makes the room look bigger!
In love with the ottoman, too :)
Alisa says
LOVE the changes!
Angela says
I love your room! It’s gorgeous!
Robin says
Wow, it’s fantastgic! That room is so huge, you needed a bigger rug–great choice!
christy says
It looks fantastic! I liked the old look okay and I thought the rug was a fun punch of color and you guys pulled it off. But truthfully, I also thought it could have been a fun punch of color for an apartment full of college kids. This way just seems more grown up and polished but still fun with the geometric shape. I like that the rug is now a supporting actor instead of the main character.
Fernanda says
The new rug is much better and made me think about my own choices. I’m also searching for a rug to my living room.
mribaro says
Where is the old green shag rug going to end up? Another room or Craigslist?
YoungHouseLove says
We’re thinking about trying it in the playroom or even in the sunroom if that becomes a working room. We’ll have to see where it ends up!
xo,
s
mribaro says
Cool. I also liked one of the readers’ suggestion of putting it into the guest room. Wherever you put it, I know you’ll twist the whole room around it in your fun and stylish way :)
YoungHouseLove says
Yes, that could work too! We’ll have to see where we end up!
xo,
s
Jade says
The rug is so gorgeous, it has made such a difference! I love all the changes you made although I still have a major soft spot for the colourful paper you had in the frames originally.
katie says
Wow! Looks great!! The ottoman fills out the space so much better! and the rug completes the room! The rug and ottoman you had previously looked great, but this is even better!! Great changes!
Tabitha@aintlifesweet says
I love it, absolutely love it! That rug is to die for, the color is great, the pattern is great. Love the fact that you both secretly lusted for it!
Once again, another great room!
Jen says
Looks great and awesome buys!
Merry Christmas!
Sabrina says
Ok, I wasn’t going to say anything when you first got the shag, but I did wonder how long that would last lol With 2 babies,4 cats, a dog, and a messy husband, it would last 5 mins in our house. We actually purchased a beautiful bold rug from super clearance at Walmart of all places. It is an indoor/outdoor rug but soft. Which is great. At $25 for a
5 X 8 rug I rarely get the sadness I felt when out $1200 rug was spilled on. Love the new rug and ottoman, your livingroom just keeps getting better and better!
Chris says
Love,Love,Love, the new additions! …but I would like to see less rug under the sofa and more toward the TV, maybe just the front legs touching the rug and not so much under the sofa.
YoungHouseLove says
Alas, we tried it a bunch of different ways and this is the one we like best (and further out from the sofa and it’s very close to the sliding door, where the dog runs in from outside. Wanted to give it a few feet so he could shake off any leaves and stuff before dancing on the new rug! Haha.
xo,
s
Suzy says
I love it! And think that leather ottoman is well worth $300 plus dollars. Leather furniture lasts such a long time (much longer than that Target chair, I hope). I have all leather furniture in my living room (sectional, ottoman) and while initially it’s an investment, I hope it will last forever! I’ve been trying really hard to take good care of it. Do you plan on using any conditioners? I’ve been through a few different ones, but recently tried out something called Leather Honey. I was super wary at first, but it’s amazing. Anyway, if you need a recommendation, there you go!
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks so much Suzy! Great to know!
xo,
s
Chris says
Sherry, I hope you know how lucky you are, my husband would NEVER be searching for rugs, maybe guitars, wine, or sneakers, but not rugs.
YoungHouseLove says
Haha, it’s true! I’m such a lucky gal!
xo,
s
Rhonda says
Love it! You also changed the artwork on the wall… tell tell… I do want to know.
YoungHouseLove says
I just backed the prints in burlap fabric that I had laying around so they don’t compete with the pillows/accessories!
xo,
s
Georgia Rowe says
I love it! what material is the Ottoman?
Also what is that little egg shaped table at the end of the sofa? its so cool!
x
YoungHouseLove says
The ottoman is tufted leather and the side table is a ceramic drum table from Home Goods a few years ago (for $29 I think!)
xo,
s