It’s been awhile since my last summer house decor update. You probably think we’ve been sleeping on the kitchen table and watching TV from the comfort of the yellow wooden chairs in our dining room.
Not so! We have a living room, folks! A real live furnished living room! It only took us until the fall to finish it.
Before I do the big reveal, let me just say I owe a ton of thanks to my friend Lisa from Play Chic Interiors. While I might have been able to put together the dining room myself on a good day, there is no way I would have come up with this living room on my own. Lisa gets me, understood what I wanted to accomplish (playful, summery, bright, colorful, whimsical, etc.) and helped me select each item to get the look I wanted.
Here’s what we picked:
I know what you are thinking….
A WHITE COUCH!!!!! HAVE YOU LOST YOUR DAMN MIND?????
Yes, I know. I’ve always loved a white couch but never thought I’d be dumb enough to put one in a home with my children. Well, Lisa specializes in kid-friendly decor and she told me I could use an outdoor sunbrella fabric which is stain resistant.
“Really?”
“Really.”
I went for it.
TWO WHITE COUCHES????!!!!!
I know, I know, but listen to this… Mazzy jumped on Mike while he was sipping a cup of coffee on the couch and spilled it everywhere. While Mike glared at me, all “SEE?! I TOLD YOU THIS WAS A TERRIBLE IDEA!!!”, I got a towel (a dry towel, mind you) and wiped that coffee off like the couch was teflon. One swipe, no water. It was pretty amazing.
And no, this is not a sponsored post for Sunbrella.
I also would never have thought to put two of the same couches facing each other. I probably would have used a sectional, but this set-up feels much more open with a nice flow.
Here are some more “before and after” angles of the room…
For those of you who like to know where furniture is from… the Vela couches are Room and Board, the rug is Madeline Weinrab, the Anders wicker chair is from Roost, the fan is Minka from YLighting, the mirror is Anthropologie, and the benches are vintage found on Chairish.
There are six sheepskin throws from IKEA on the benches and every night, after the kids go to bed, I pick them up from a pile on the floor. Harlow’s favorite thing is to take them all down and make a little bed for herself.
She does this mulitple times a day and there is no sense putting them back until she has gone to sleep.
Here are a few more of the details…
The triangle decals are Urban Walls; they make a nice little surprise when you open the coat closet.
The coatrack dots in the entrance are from DWR.
The serape throw can be found here, the tassel pillow is Anthropologie and the yellow spindle table is $60 on Amazon and comes in many different colors.
But, the best item in the room, by far, is the coffee table.
It’s made by a guy who imports roots from Indonesia. He doesn’t have a website otherwise I would link it.
Apparently, they don’t like to waste any part of the tree when they cut the wood to make teak furniture, so they dig up the roots too. Each one is totally unique and you have to order your root sight unseen. You have no idea what you’re getting until the guy calls you and says, “Your coffee table has arrived.”
Honestly, our table was a little crazier than I was expecting— I thought it would be less curvy with a larger solid surface area— but now, I love it. With so many geometric shapes in the room, it’s awesome to have something look so fluid. Also, there’s something very stress relieving about resting the soles of your feet on the smooth curved notches of the table.
What else can I show you about the room?
I know! Here’s Harlow standing in it…
I don’t even know how she gets herself like this. I just turn around and VOILA! She’s fully accessorized.
Kinda hoping that’s what happens with our bedroom.
Currently sleeping on a mattress on the floor and pretending my suitcase is a dresser.
Stay tuned for more decor updates! It’s kinda hard to do now that we are spending most of our time in the city, but hopefully, we will have the place complete some time before the kids go to college.
Here’s one last shot of us, early in the morning, enjoying our new living room and totally not worrying if we spill coffee on our brand new white couch.
If you live in the NY area, I totally recommend working with my friend Lisa at Play Chic Interiors. You can follow her on Instagram here.
If you want to see glimpses of my house before I post them on the blog, you should follow @mommyshorts on Instagram too.
I love when people grab a bunch of items that if I saw in a store, I would think “what a bunch of crap!” and walk by (because clearly I have zero imagination/creativity and would be the worst interior designer ever (maybe next to worst author judging by this terrible runon sentence)) and they then place said items in a room and my jaw drops, because to take my word and use it against me – Holy Crap – that is AMAZING! I too, like Mike, have coffee spewed all over my own (very boring, opposite of chic) couch, from my surprise at going from the first picture of the random items to the picture showing them in action! It looks amazing! Kid friendly and fun yet still suitable decor for adult tastes, and very summery! Next Allstate contest? Flying your friend to cities (starting in Canada – ahem) to help moms like me who’s decor is best described as “too lazy to pick up kid clutter”???
Wow, absolutely gorgeous!! Please continue to post the other rooms as you go.
so beautiful! i am so terrible at decorating! i love the coat closet surprise color. one question, with the fabric that doesn’t stain, is it still comfortable?
So gorgeous and so bright. Love it.
I’m so jealous of your beautiful space! Love all the pieces and the coffee table is so unique. I’m going to have to look into the Sunbrella fabric!
Hot damn I love that mirror and table.
That is gorgeous. I swear your house should be in a magazine. gotta keep that sunbrella fabric in mind for when we get our own place.
One of my dearest friends is the granddaughter of the inventor of Sunbrella fabric! 🙂
Love it all – so airy and beachy!! Want to be adopted by you and Mike.
Beautiful pieces! It made me even more excited about our own home- can’t wait to start decorating too!
I’ve been spending ridiculous amounts of time on Pinterest and looking at home decor magazines because we’re in the process of buying Our First House (!!). Hubby has wonderfully classic taste and has an aesthetic eye that I could never hope to replicate, but he can lack some creativity. So he rolled his eyes at me, but he still went and picked up the free work bench on craigslist that I immediately imagined as our new kitchen island. 🙂
Did you have the floors redone. They look so much lighter. Love the painted fireplace also. Just awesome.
Glenda
Yep- we sanded and restained the floors white. Here’s the post with before and afters of the walls, floors and fireplace: https://www.mommyshorts.com/2014/06/we-bought-a-house-the-inside-edition.html
You guys are so cute. I love this space. Cozy, colorful, livable, personal, & my favorite, NOT BORING.
Wow! I wish I had the vision to put together a room like that. It’s amazing! Fresh, fun, and chic but still totally livable. Nice job. I bet it’s a joy to go there…
I have some serious house envy going on right now. Love everything, and that coffee table is so crazy unique.
But I have to ask…no TV at the summer house? I know you always post about how Mazzy and Harlow watch a good amount of TV.
Yes, this is my favorite thing about the house. There is a downstairs den/playroom which is where we have the TV. We are going to put a sectional in there which will not be white! So the living room is really more of a hang-out for the grown-ups.
I savour, cause I discovered just what I was taking a look for.
You’ve ended my 4 day lengthy hunt! God Bless
you man. Have a nice day. Bye
This is beautiful! It’s mind boggling to me how much of a difference it made to paint the brick fireplace white. It changes the whole room!
Please say you didn’t get rid of the hardwood floors and replace them with laminate!
Nope. Just sanded them and restained. They were in pretty good shape for being almost 30 years old!
I love everything about this! I don’t care for match-matchy. This room has character – which matches the owner!
I have a very eclectic meets shabby chic meets modern thing going in my home…and it works!
I am jealous of your fabulous taste!
Beautiful! I love it all! Can you share the contact information for the guy who you got the coffee table from? Thanks!
Wow, I love it! And what a good idea to have two living rooms – and the main one without TV. It looks so bright and colorful and happy 🙂
[…] to visit! The space was designed by my good friend Lisa of Abaca Interiors, who you might remember helped me decorate my summer house last year. Clearly, she is still the person you call when you want a chic yet kid-friendly space. […]
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