OUR DREAM LIVING ROOM MAKEOVER

Our living room is the heart of our house, in fact sometimes I wonder why we strive to have so many rooms when you actually spend the majority of your time in either the kitchen, living room or your bed. Our living room was a jumble of items from our previous homes, it was loud in colour, had zero storage and simply looked tired and out of date. I couldn’t wait to transform it.

Floor: One of the biggest changes we made was to rip up the grey carpet and replace it with this oak laminate flooring. Having a dog and baby meant our carpet was simply not functional, it stained easily and although soft on the feet is made the whole room appear so much darker. This laminate was a cost-effective and beautiful way of bringing in more light whilst being the perfect baby, dog and life-proof floor.

Paint: We stripped down our leaf wallpaper and opted for more earthy neutral tones to bring in warmth but knock out the typical magnolia colour, new homes are so often painted with. We chose Farrow and Ball Ammonite which is such a gorgeous tone and looks beautiful on film and in photos. We knew we still wanted a feature wall and couldn’t wait to apply this lime wash paint from Bauwerk in ‘White Stag’. It gives the room so much texture and is the perfect backdrop to highlight the other colours in the room. It’s also super fun to use and takes almost no time to do.

Storage: One of the things we knew we needed most was storage! New builds rarely have much space for all the little things you need to put away and with baby toys, books and more we really wanted a cabinet that would become a feature in its own right. I had never thought about adding pink into our home but when we came across these A.S.Helsingö sideboards we were so excited for them to arrive. A.S.Helsingö kindly offered to collaborate with us  on this custom sideboard and their planning tool made designing the right one for us so simple. They have over 16 colours and three different styles and are built on top of IKEA METOD cabinet frames, so you really can create the perfect sideboard for your home. We opted to create a cabinet that would fill the length of the wall and it was so easy to build and fit that we actually did the same thing for our office (blog post coming soon).

Lighting: When we started changing the rooms in our house one of the first things we looked at was lighting, it makes such a huge difference to a space and is invaluable when we spend most of our days shooting and filming. We decided to drag the third light of the room into the corner and hang this beautiful light from Tine K Home. We actually bought a lightbulb with a remote so that we can turn all four lights in the room on and off at different times and it makes the perfect mood lighting. The other ceiling lights are from H&M home and the table lamp is from Made.com.

Soft: I’m a sucker for soft textures and knew that by changing the floor to laminate we would want a soft rug like this one from La Redoute to relax on. I’ve had so many direct messages about it and can only rave about it as it’s handled baby food and dog paws wonderfully!

Mirror: I love having a mirror in the living room and so do my daughter’s sticky hands! This one from Connox is so simple yet fits into our style perfectly.

Table: We’d never had a coffee table before and to be honest with you, we might have to wait a couple more years before we can actually pop a coffee on it without our daughter trying to pull it off. This one from Rose and Grey is so beautiful to look at and lovely for when friends come over as it really brings the room together.

Chair: My husband loves to sit and play the guitar and we knew we wanted a chair that was separate to the sofa so when we spotted this bamboo seat on Tine K Home we knew it would be worth the wait!

Pictures: Artwork really finishes a room and I’m such a fan of black and white photography so couldn’t wait for these Desenio and Juniqe prints to arrive.

Design:  I am so thankful to Gemma from Balance Interior Design who helped us create the space of our dreams! We feel so happy and relaxed in our home now that each room feels like it has a purpose. If you feel lost like we did on how to change your style or improve a room, I cannot recommend Gemma enough.