Oh I am so thrilled today that we have Kristin from Bliss @ Home. I am totally in love with her style, it is ecclectic, fun and oh so chic. I know you are going to love seeing her home. It is full of inspiration, fabulous DIY projects and thrify buys.
Hi Marty’s readers! I am so happy to
be sharing one of our spaces on this fun series! I actually had a tough time
deciding what space I wanted to share with you guys, but I finally decided to
show you our living room. Our home is the home I spent most of my childhood in.
We bought it a few years ago and have been making it over room by room. The
living room is the second space in this house we have tackled and I am happy to
report…I think it is pretty much finished…for now!
So, as I said this is the home I grew
up in. I have seen the good, bad, and ugly with this room. I remember when my
parents bought it. Old red carpet, dingy walls…but they could see the
potential. Years later, we got crazy and decided to buy it and make it our own.
My style differs a lot from my parents. This room was full of oak trim and was a
mix of traditional and mission style details.
This is how it looked after we moved
in before we started the work:
I apologize
for the photo quality. It was pre-blog, pre-thinking anyone would see this
photo. As you can see the room is long and has large picture windows. the
fireplace was all stone. The baseboards and trim all oak. It had an ugly ceiling
fan. There was a lot of work to do in here. It felt really dark and boring to
me. The floors were great though. They are original to the house and my Dad
refinished them when he owned it.
This room has been a process and it
definitely hasn’t happened overnight. It has taken about a year to make it what
it is today. The first thing we did was lighten things up. We painted the walls
a light gray and replaced all the baseboards with thicker white baseboards to
match the beautiful plaster crown molding. I wanted to take advantage of the
windows and light so I just added sheers and some dummy drape panels on the
sides.
I pulled the seating arrangement away
from the wall. Floating the furniture works so great in this space since it is a
longer room. The rug anchors and defines the space. We wanted a library wall, so
we worked within our budget and made one out of Ikea BILLY bookcases. You can
see our full
bookcase tutorial to see how we made them look built-in, added brass
library lights on remote, and a hidden sound system. I designed this room to how
we live. We have a family room for watching tv, so I wanted this to be a room to
relax, read the paper, listen to music, and entertain friends.
Another area we tackled is the
fireplace. Now, that the room was light and bright the rustic stone fireplace
looked so out-of-place. I love a wood-burning fireplace. It is a must for a
Northern Illinois winter! We use it a lot!
We updated it by painting the stone
white, adding a custom mantel, and tiling around the firebox with marble. It is
a drastic difference. You can see our
fireplace makeover for more details on the tiling and before and
after.
Since this room looks into our entry
way and hallway, I kept the same color scheme in those spaces. The entry way
wall has a black and white stencil, and the hallway is bright white with a black
bamboo lantern and black and white rug. It unifies these spaces.
This space is full of DIY. All the
brass lighting–the sconces, chandelier, and reading light are all thrifty finds
that I fixed up and added black shades with gold foil inserts. They help unify
these adjoining areas. The black table and ottomans in the entry way were made
over. The table is an old computer desk that I painted and added the glass top
to. The ottomans are recovered old storage cubes that used to be in the play
room.
More DIY, obviously the fireplace and
bookcases, but most of the artwork is mine. I made the art on the Mondrian-inspired
art on the mantel and painted the huge painting behind the sofa.
The color scheme for this room is
pretty neutral. I like to use a lot of black and white, gold, gray, mixed
metals, and warm earthy tones. I added pops of pink for spring. A little goes a
long way.
This room has seen a lot of big
changes. By laying a neutral foundation with the walls and trim it became a
blank slate. The addition of the library wall and custom fireplace makeover gave
it some great features. The rest is just little DIY and decor to mix in color
and texture and a bit of personality. I hunt thrift stores and flea markets and
most of our decor and furniture is from there. I love the end result and it is
by far the room that we spend the most time in.
Thanks so much for having me join you
today Marty!
xo-Kristin
Kristin
www.bliss-athome.com
So didn’t you find tons of inspiration and ideas for your own DIY projects. I love her style and she has such a classically chic decor sense. Now if you don’t know her, be sure to rush over and click that follow button, you really don’t want to miss a single post. Thanks tons Kristen, I have loved having you on Show Off & Inspire, and you truly do inspire.
If you would like to be featured, just leave a comment or email me, I would love to feature you too. astrollthrulife@live.com
I am linking to the following parties:
Imparting Grace , My Romantic Home , French Country Cottage ,
The Thrifty Groove , Common Ground ,The Charm of Home ,
Chic On A Shoestring Decorating , Finding Fabulous ,Rooted In Thyme ,
Jennifer Rizzo , Redoux Interiors , Remodelaholic,
Pieced Pastimes , Funky Junk Interiors ,It’s Overflowing , Be Different act Normal
Be sure to enter my French Cow Grain Sack Giveaway.
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