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So I'm no interior decorator and I'm not rolling in cash either, but we do like having a pleasant environment to wind down in. This is what my wife and I have done with the front room of our teens era bungalow over the last 5 years with mostly yard sale and second-hand store finds.
So what style are we? What works and what can we do better? Thanks for your input!
I like the looks but those chairs don't look too inviting to me. Not sure how to explain why not and of course it's just my opinion but -thinking-when I sit I want to be able to have my head supported too. Never realized that before-maybe I'm a fathead?? but, that's it-no head support.
Bit, as I said, looks nice-kind of Victorian I think.
what a great house, love the wood beams and lovely floor. I think you could use some pops of color. it is all very neutral. just add pillows of a bold color would help if you don't want to replace the rugs with more color or paint an accent wall to bring the color in. the only other suggestion I have is to rearrange the furniture, right now it looks spread out like you just have a bunch of chairs in the room, no real rhyme or reason to it. make a conversation area with your furniture and use your fireplace as a focal point. I would move the cute little chest/dresser you have against the window somewhere else, it crowds the room there. you could move the other small chair to the other side of piano that would look more balanced. put you love seat looking at the fireplace.
it may not be practical because of the radiator but if it is I would move your piano to where your big buffet is and put that where the piano is. the wood beam you have makes it two rooms, you need two distinct areas. love your overhead lamps too
It looks Victorianish. I would add a sofa to make it a little more comfortable looking, unless there is a sofa in front of the fireplace, and move the chairs around. It looks like all of your furniture is against walls. If that's a piano, take off the things on top so that you can see the picture--maybe add them to the fireplace mantel but not blocking that picture. I really like the sideboards and area rugs, and you get great light.
Nice Craftsman like woodwork and trim. I love the furnishings although they appear a bit earlier than the house. I love an old house too and have a small couch and couple of oddball chairs in my living room.
The thing I like best about your room is that it feels like a wonderful place to let a breeze through and just sit and enjoy some peace. I think the wall color is fitting of the room also.
Two things stick out at me--no couch to nap on in front of the fire with a good book and the matchy, matchy rugs scream "Walmart find" to me. One rug under the chairs in the middle would be fine-3 is WAY too many. Put the coffee table at the end of the room in the middle with the chairs, take up the rug and the one by the piano and your room will look better. Put felt pads under the piano bench and the piano to protect the floor. I would also put the green chair next to the fireplace and put that chair where the green chair is for more balance.
Is the one end of the living room supposed to be the dining room (under the ceiling fan)? If there isn't another formal dining room, that area is designed for that and I would work on making it such.
I like everything except for the furniture. I would get more comfortable/inviting furnishings with colorful pillows/accents. Also, maybe put some family collage photos on the walls.
The beautiful earthtones in your room are the colors that I love also. I think that the room needs some large couches and chests/tables and fewer pieces of furniture - it is a fairly large room and the many pieces of small to medium size furniture make the room seem a little hodge-podge. You do need the addition of some subtle color. I know you are going for the arts and crafts aesthetic, but it is a little drab.
There seems to be no focal point - just groups of chairs and it appears that many of the chairs don't have tables or anything on which to set a glass or a book.....a table lamp or two would look inviting and make the room more usable.
I like the minimum of wall artwork you have chosen but I think the pottery you have chosen does nothing for the room - glazed pottery in earthtones would be beautiful.
I agree about removing at least one of the rugs or perhaps you just need to separate the rugs with a large couch.
Here is a website with a picture of a living room that reminds me of yours.....scroll down to the London Ontario front room. Notice how pulled together this room looks and with a minimum of furniture.
The formal dining room is now being used as the TV area (the big hutch looking thing is the entertainment center and the (flat screen) TV pops out of the top. We also have a decent sized "breakfast room" just inside that doorway in the dining room with plenty of eating space for us, so we never really considered using the formal dining room as it was originally intended.
It's true the room is very "Victorian-ish" for a craftsman style house but that really isn't uncommon at all for my area, where Edwardian style seemed to last a bit longer than other areas of the country (We is backward folk in Utah, you see ), not to mention Victorian era kitsch just happens to be the kind stuff I'm always coming across at good prices. Being that it's a historic home (on the National Register to boot), I got a lot of inspiration from period interior pics in the state archives as well and have tried to model the room more or less accordingly:
The exterior of the house is actually Prairie Style, with a low pitch hipped roof, huge overhanging eaves, brick and stucco walls and bands of casement windows, though it is only one story.
Believe it or not, I've only spent maybe a $1000-$2000 on the whole room (minus the entertainment center, anyway). All the other furniture and knicknacks came from furniture store scratch and dent stuff, yard sales, Deseret Industries (the local equivalent to Goodwill) and family hand-me-downs. The majority of my book collection and some of the art items were inherited from my Grandma when she died.
I do want to get rid of the "Home Depot special" rugs, but we also have three younger kids so I can't imagine dropping serious cash on nice Persian rugs at the moment...
Last edited by Chango; 08-13-2011 at 03:34 PM..
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), not to mention Victorian era kitsch just happens to be the kind stuff I'm always coming across at good prices. Being that it's a historic home (on the National Register to boot), I got a lot of inspiration from period interior pics in the state archives as well and have tried to model the room more or less accordingly:
