If you're coming over from Up to Date Interiors, WELCOME!!! Who doesn't love a good blog hop? You get to be a voyeur into other people's homes and styles without being a total creeper and peeking in windows. When Stephanie from Casa Watkins Living invited me to define my design style and show the evolution of it in a room of my home, I was 100% in!!!
It's easy to forget that for every perfectly curated pinterest-worthy or instagrammed room, there's a round-about path that lead to that place.
My style today is eclectic, modern vintage, but it didn't always shine through like it does today. Let's take an awkward journey through my living room over the past almost 6 years. I cringe so hard when I look at the first version of my living room. Aside from a new tv stand, I tried to make the living room from my old apartment work in this new smaller space. Spoiler alert: it didn't!! To recreate this amazing space, mix undersized artwork with furniture way to bulky for a small room, and add a big splash of brown (please don't).
The next iteration of the room definitely had a bit more personality, but still had a waaaays to go. The mistake I made for YEARS, and should have known better, was trying to make pieces that I previously owned (and they weren't great pieces to start with!) work in this space as opposed to assessing the space, THEN designing it. Are you all impressed with my perfectly lit night shot? Oh the things you learn through years of blogging....
After years of tweaking small things and still not loving the room, I went back to the drawing board and decided to do what I should have done from the beginning and designed the room from scratch. I coerced Hubby into a new sofa (huzzah!!!), painted the coffee tables gold, built a DIY corner bookshelf to fill the awkward space, and upgraded the boxy apartment left-over side tables with eclectic antique finds. While I enjoyed this version, being the first room that you walk into from our front door, it was a bit of design overload in a small space.
Which brings us happily to the end of our journey and what my living room looks like today. It's a fun mix of modern shapes and patterns, vintage furniture and quirky finds: hence my label of "eclectic, modern, vintage."
How can you get this look? I recommend keeping staple pieces like a sofa and tv stand timeless. In this case, I used a mid-century-modern inspired sofa and a vintage mid-century hutch-turned-tv stand to ground the space.
Especially in a small room like this one, think big to small: the bigger the piece, the more classic/versatile it should be, the smaller, the quirkier it can be. This keeps the crazy-factor down to an interesting and intriguing level as opposed to sending your guests running. For example- a hand-shaped vase as a book end: quirky. a hand-shaped chair in a tiny living room: a bit too eccentric.
Shop this look:
Disclaimer: some sources below may contain affiliate links. Shopping through these links will be at no additional cost to you, however will help support my design addiction so I can keep blogging about it.
While many pieces are vintage, finds from years ago, or HomeGoods finds that I can't find sources for, here are some similar items to get you started:
Furniture: Sofa, tv stand, coffee tables (painted gold), pedestal side table, side table with drawers, antique chair (needs reupholstery)
Lighting: Tripod floor lamp
Decor: Starburst mirror, yellow stripe pillow, ukulele wall hook, vintage teapot (planter), wooden shoe mold, textured cookie jar, hand vase (painted matte white)
Hop on over to the next home on the tour, Kimberly's eclectic, boho, glam style on Swoonworthy. Be sure to check out all the amazing style evolutions the rest of this week!
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