It’s been a while since I’ve chatted about the family room in our “new” house (we’ve lived here almost a year, can I still call it “new”?). This room has been the slowest evolving room in our entire house – which is sorta driving me crazy because it’s in the center of our house, and we spend all our time here – but I am also trying really hard to be patient and get it right. We’ve pretty much replaced every piece in this room since we moved in – we built new side tables, refinished an old hutch to be our media stand, made our own oversized ottoman to be a coffee table, hung patterned cornices, and even got a new fantastical blue couch! Once all those projects were done, we were stuck. We had updated a lot of the large elements for the space, but weren’t exactly sure what direction to go in to pull the whole thing together. It sat like this for quite a while: bland bland bland bland!

Today, I want to chat a little about this wall, the one the media hutch is on. I don’t particularly care for clutter, so accessorizing is really tough for me. I don’t like useless, meaningless stuff lying around collecting dust; but at the same time, I knew this bare-bones side of the room wasn’t giving me that cozy collected, “just right” feeling I was craving. It was a little…empty…


I added a few accessories for the holidays (below), and after seeing the pictures here on the blog, I realized this side of the room need some well-selected accessories to finish it up. It’s amazing what photos can show you that is hard to see live with your very own eyes!

So after a lot of searching, thinking, tweaking, moving, arranging and re-arranging, here we are now…

I didn’t do anything overly creative or genius here, but I like to think these well-selected accessories help finish this side of the room a little more. What all did I do?

When we added Henry’s green high chair around our dining room table, we had an extra dining chair. I loved the blue pattern in the corner of the living room, so that stayed after the holidays. To the chair, I added a fleecy throw (IKEA, $3) and a new blue and white striped pillow (DIY, more details on Wednesday!). The lamp is from Target – I must have gone and looked at it a million times before I finally bought it. Floor lamps don’t tend to survive moves (and babies!) very well, so I try to avoid them, but I just knew this one would be perfect, and it is!

To the left of the TV, I have a large apothacary jar (purchased overseas in Okinawa) filled with a ton of sea glass collected from Okinawan beaches. The little green bud vase (Crate&Barrel) holds some off-spring of the philodendron that is growing like crazy in our living room!

On the right side of the TV, I added some books and an extra large jax (Hobby Lobby); and behind that I placed one of my new favorite plans: Lucky Bamboo! I don’t exactly have a green thumb (although lately, it’s getting greener 😉 and when I was looking for plants to put in some glass vases, these were just the ticket! They are almost impossible to kill, and they only need water to survive (so I didn’t have to put soil into my see-through glass jars). I filled a large glass vase (from my stash) with garden rocks (leftover from our garden), and these babies were good to go! They get just enough natural light from the front window and are thriving! I am always so amazed at what an impact live plants have in a space!

Nate Berkus always said on his show that you need to have a natural element in every space. I tend to like things shiny and clean, but who am I to question an expert! I had this fantastic basket hidden away in my closet (I think it’s from Marshalls years and years ago!). I fill it with more throw pillows and blankets that always rotate on and off the couch throughout the day! Don’t you think for a minute I keep that beautiful quilt stuffed in the basket all the time – it’s pulled out every night to keep us cozy on the couch – Henry (our two year old) just doesn’t like blankets on the couch – they impede him from jumping off the back after all – so it’s easier right now to keep everything in baskets! LOL.

It’s really hard to get a shot of how all these rooms are coming together, but this shot from the couch (below) can give you a glimpse of our living room, dining room, and laundry room in the background. The blue striped fabric is used both on the pillow and the laundry room curtain; and the grey stripes on the wall are echoed in the art on the dining room walls. I love this view from the couch.

So….speaking of pictures, they really do give you a different perspective of a space than you can get while standing in it. I was pretty much ready to declare this side of the room “done” until I uploaded these photos for this post. Just looking at these photos helped me see the large open wall space on the right side of the room, above the basket. I can’t help but feel some simple artwork or photographs are needed here to balance out the whole wall.

What do you think???

This room isn’t quite yet done, but I do have some more updates for you to see this week. On Wednesday, I’m going to show you the sewing I’ve been doing for this space! See you then!

See You Soon!
Megan