On a crisp, sunny morning the french windows in our little living room greedily catch the first toasty beams of light and spread a gentle warmth throughout the space. When it’s cool and gloomy outside however, they frame a haunting view of dispersing mists rolling over the nearby hills. Either way, a sense of nostalgia is somehow born in me, conjuring feelings reminiscent of childhood which always seem to evoke contentment.
It’s quite amazing how a home can make you feel and to imagine that it may well be the simplest things which will become our fondest memories in the years to come.
Our living room is still evolving and while I’m happy with its calming colour palette and layers of natural texture there are a couple of pieces I’m kinda just making do with for now (I’m writing a separate post dedicated to some of the changes I’ve got planned).
All of the furniture, sofas aside, is second-hand and pretty much everything else was either thrifted, bought on sale or gifted.
To give you an idea of the layout, here’s my hive’s floor plan:
And here are some (very fuzzy – sorry!) before shots from the previous owners mid-way through moving out:
It’s a bit hard to tell though the walls were apple green and all of the trim was natural brown timber. To lighten up the space we painted the walls pale cream and all of the timber gloss white.
The original owners had installed a faux timber floating floor which, whilst it wouldn’t necessarily have been my first choice, is nice, clean and neutral.
I would’ve liked to have been able to keep the windows free of bulky furniture though there was nowhere else to put the second sofa and I couldn’t swap the dining room space for the living area cause it’s far too small :-(
It kinda looks like you might be able to put something horizontally between the dining and living rooms as some kind of divider, though trust me, it’s nowhere near wide enough!
As you can see from the floor plan there’s this weird little diagonal wall. The previous owners had a sofa against it though if you look at the floor plan and picture a deep piece of furniture on that wall it’s easy to imagine it leaving a pretty narrow gap from the entryway to the living room. We instead decided to put the TV there and it works perfectly. To the left you can glimpse the little entryway.
Now, just for comparisons sake, here’s some side by side before and afters:
And here’s some more photos just because I can’t help myself:
Not sure about you, though typographics always seem to catch my eye.
When I first brought six of these stools home everyone thought I was crazy – myself included to be honest. I loved the pared back industrial feel of them though they were a little too raw for me. I wanted to freshen them up (a bit) and add something eye-catching. I wasn’t quite sure what, however, so the stools sat in the garage for a while until I finally had a brain wave which told me to make three stencils from old x-ray slides (see, there is some use in those seemingly defunct internal photo sheets) and use them to paint some funky looking numbers on the seats!
Before I added the numbers, I lightly sanded each seat before wiping on a diluted walnut stain to add some extra depth and richness. Once dry, I stencilled on the numbers with standard acrylic craft paint. To finish I applied two coats of my beloved danish oil.
I recently sold two sets of these stools to a client who has three children and wanted to use three at her breakfast bar and one in each of their bedrooms as little side tables – how cute.
I bought four of these second-hand colonial carvers (advertised as dining chairs) for $5 each with visions of using them with my dining table. Though when I picked them up and saw them in person I knew straight away it was not to be….they were massive and waaay too imposing for my little dining space.
The head rest has a wonderful pressed-back.
The braid trim gives a nice finishing touch..jpg)
Sandpaper
