There’s something about being nearly a year into living here that makes it feel like we’ve accomplished a fair amount of “evolution” over the last 357 days (not that I’m counting…). I guess it’s because living somewhere for a month isn’t really a lot of time for tweak-age, but twelve of those in a row – well, it’s enough time to get things going. Like living with a floor plan for 11 months (just to be suuuuure) and then knocking out a wall that we’ve wanted gone from day one:
It’s also enough time to make a few furniture and accessory changes as we transition from working with what we have (like random stuff carried over from our first house) and first-instinct choices to a few more thought-out decisions. Yup, these things apparently take time – at least in our experience (remember this post on that subject?). So here’s the story about a pretty sizeable three-fer tweak of epic rug, ottoman, and chair proportions.
We haven’t made any major furniture/accessory purchases since the just-moved-in phase when we got our sectional, our first rug, our bed, and our big dining room table. Then we went on a building/DIY kick for the next almost-year (making our $104 console table and our $124 wall-to-wall double desk and saving nearly 4K by laying our own stone patio and getting a ton of estimates to save 3K on our kitchen wall-opening). We’ve mostly just been picking up super inexpensive secondhand furnishings since moving in (like our $35 desk chairs, $25 dining chairs, and four secondhand kitchen cabinets for our in-progress remodel for under $100).
So after many months of building up the savings account and waiting for things that we loved to come along, it felt nice to actually buy them. And since we had some “store credit” towards Joss & Main from curating a sale with them as a side gig (more on that here), we loved that we could put that towards our living room tweaks, especially because it’s one of our most used rooms, so we’ll definitely notice and appreciate it. But now onto what we tweaked and why…
For the last almost-year we have loved our fluffy green shag rug (it was great for a wiggly crawling baby and a wobbly toddler – and was so thick and inviting that many an adult found themselves sitting/lying on the floor). But there are a few issues that have popped up as Clara has grown.
# 1. Let’s just say that finding milk dripped and goldfish or cheerios crushed into our plush rug was less than pleasing. Yes, we’re one of those casual families who doesn’t have a no-food-in-the-living-room rule (I mean, peanut butter & jelly or a bagel with cream cheese isn’t living-room approved, but dry crackers and a sippy cup of milk are). That’s just how we both grew up and we really appreciate the this-house-is-not-a-museum vibe, so we plan to keep it that way. And although vacuuming or a bit of scrubbing (for spilled milk) got ‘er done (and Burger was awesome about hunting down the occasional goldfish before we even knew it’d gone missing) the rug was still a bit higher maintenance than a lower pile one would be now that we have an energetic toddler.
#2. The size. In our first house both our living room and den rugs were just 5 x 8′ since the rooms there were so small. So although we knew that our new living room was much larger, somehow an 8 x 11’ rug sounded like it had to be big enough for our 25 foot long room. Well… try as we might to “adjust” to it, it always felt a little small (we’re definitely still learning how to decorate a larger space). Like our giant sectional was just baaaarely contained on the boundaries of the rug:
So when I saw this giant (10 x 14!) 100% wool rug for $599 (down from $798) on Joss & Main I got excited. And nervous. That’s not exactly peanuts around here. But it’s a huge rug – and rugs that size that we like are usually 1-2K (which made me fake ugly-cry on at least three occasions). It almost felt impossible to find something extra large, low pile, and our style that didn’t end in three zeros. So $599 started to sound pretty good. At least good enough to contemplate for a little while.
After mulling it over for a few hours, I decided to show John to see what he thought (we have a full agreement agreement, so we don’t buy anything that we don’t both love). That way if he nixed it I could just close the window and stop thinking about it. But when I went to show it to John, he had it up on his screen (he also gets Joss & Main alerts and had clicked on that rug and left it open on his computer to “talk to me about it” a little later). Crazy, huh? We were both secretly mulling over the same rug. It was meant to be. So we gritted our teeth and put in our order. I’m not going to say that we didn’t have sweaty palms, but we went for it.
Since we’d been temporarily using a too-small placeholder-ottoman that didn’t have storage which used to reside in our first bedroom as a side table, we also found ourselves pining after this big tufted leather storage ottoman. Again, it’s not exactly a cheap addition to the room. At all. But nearly fourteen cubic feet of additional hidden storage was a huge draw (it’s almost 3 x 3 x 1.5 with an easy-open hinged top). Of course we also appreciated that it’s a correctly-sized counterpart to our giant sectional (as opposed to looking like a too-small donut hole) and that it isn’t hard and pointy for little toddler heads (but can be used for serving food & drinks with the addition of a nice big tray). Yup, she’s versatile. And we never could have sprung for it at 900 beans, but at over $500 off… well…
And then somehow this $169 chair (down from$339) said “how you doin’?”…
…which was especially convenient since the parson’s chair that we purchased for $70 from Target about four years ago was looking a little rough due to tons of use which led to one side of the faux-leather cracking so it looked like this:
So we waited patiently at the door for everything to arrive, pausing only to eat, sleep, change the baby, work on the kitchen, and blog. When everything arrived pretty much at the same time, it was sorta like Christmas. Literally, it kind of was (we declared these items to be our Christmas gifts to each other for last year, this year, and next year). Psst- pardon the rug wiggles, we still need to get a rug pad. And as for the art swap, I meant to blog about that a while back. It’s actually extra burlap-ish fabric that I used instead of the colorful paper. I love that it has more texture and doesn’t compete with the bright pillows and accessories.
Spending that kind of money on a rug and ottoman was definitely not a drop in the bucket for cheap-os like us. Heck even $169 for a chair isn’t usually our MO (we’re no strangers to spending $20-35 on thrift store or craigslist chairs). But it did feel nice to add up the sale savings ($199 + $521 + $170 = a whopping $890!). And more importantly, since we’ve worked our buns off to DIY so many projects over the last 11 months it meant that we were able to save a pretty nice chunk of change, so our bank account was thankfully just fine with the living room spree (we don’t like to buy anything we can’t immediately pay off – more on that here).
Of course we’re hoping to reuse the old round ottoman and the old living room rug in other still-evolving spaces (you know we’re use-what-you-got fans) and we might even try slipcovering the faux-leather chair in some fun fabric for another spot as well. So we’ll have to keep you posted on those cha-cha-cha-changes too. Of course we still have about a million other working-with-what-we-have items going on, like the wrong sized rug in the office, a too-small TV and media cabinet in the living room (we hope to build a nice media center to balance out our chunky distressed console table) along with many completely-missing elements (like a large buffet/console table with art and a rug in the entryway off of the dining area and an entire playroom and sunroom that have yet to be tackled along with all of our bathrooms). But we’ll get there someday.
Knowing that our first house took us 4.5 years to complete is a great comfort to us, because it takes away the we-want-it-all-done-now pressure. These things take time. But we’re feeling really good with our one-year-in progress (see a lot of that here). How about you? Do you have a “magic number” of months or years after living somewhere when you finally start to feel more settled and “evolved” (after feeling around in the dark for a few months while you get your bearings)?
Psst- To anyone looking to purchase the rug, ottoman, or chair – Joss and Main has flash sales (only lasting a few days) so of course by the time we got this stuff in the mail and took pics they weren’t for sale anymore. But lots of their stuff can be found on wayfair.com (though it’s not usually as heavily discounted over there) or you can get on Joss & Main’s mailing list here (that’s an instant invite, so you don’t have to wait). Hope it helps!
Ami says
WOW!!! Every thing looks AMAZING! Great job!!!
julie says
I’m totally sweatin’ your new chair! Love it
Rhiana says
I love to read your DIY posts bit I was very excited to read about the new furniture you picked out and purchased for yourselves! It is all really beautiful and you guys really deserve it! I saw some tips with rug pads and I wanted to share the one the hubs and I just used. Before we rolled the rug out we taped the pad to the ground with painter’s tape. So much easier to roll the rug out and no bubbles or shifting.
Enjoy your new beautiful furniture!
YoungHouseLove says
Great tip!
xo,
s
Meagan says
I didn’t know anything was wrong with that other rug until the new one entered the picture. Wow. You were right. Kermit was too small. This little (or really, big) baby was exactly what this room needed. I’m in love. Plus that new ottoman and the new desk chair. and the punchy new desk accessories. Oh girl this room is might be giving the office a run for its money on being my favorite room in your house.
emily says
one word: love.
Eli says
Hey Sherdog, where did that white stool next to Karl come from? Is it new? FYI – looooove the new living room :)
YoungHouseLove says
That’s a ceramic garden stool that I got from HomeGoods a few years ago (for $29 I think!).
xo,
s
Julie says
Looks great. Nice choices. Have you considered swapping Karl’s legs?
YoungHouseLove says
We like the current legs that we ORB’ed over the metal ones that Ikea sells, but it’s totally a personal preference thing!
xo,
s
Regan @ RenovatingRothenbergers says
Excuse me while I go mop my drool off the floor. Love that rug & ottoman & chair!!! Great choices! The room looks sooo much bigger and pulled together now. :)
crystal says
totally in love with this look! Omg it looks so bright & posh!
katie says
wow, looks great — love how each new piece is more of an upgrade, a polished riff on the old idea, rather than a completely new look…shows that it’s possible to keep your style but mature a little along the way. =)
Cara says
It looks gorgeous!! It’s amazing what a difference little (well…even if not so little in price) tweaks make to the room.
I’m about 6 months into a new home and have been making minor updates while saving up for more major ones. Waiting is SO hard, but worth it as I’m sure you guys can attest. I’m also eagerly waiting for your kitchen cabinet makeover because that is one of the first things on my list for next year!
Susan (Between Naps on the Porch) says
Love it all but the ottoman is my fave! Great rug, too! Love all the changes! :)
J says
LOVE it!!! Everything looks awesome – we too have an ottoman in our living room for our wee one and find its an awesome place to stow away her toys and makes for easy clean-ups when someone just drops by:)
Susie says
I love it! The last design was fun but this reminds me of the YHL I first fell in love with: serene, peaceful, functional, comfortable, classy – A+!
Stephanie says
Love the ottoman and the rug is fab!
question or possible future post idea: where do you store Clara’s toys? I have a 20 month old and our living room is just stuffed with toys/books/kid stuff. It is overwhelming!
YoungHouseLove says
See the basket next to the TV? That’s full of toys. As is the new ottoman. And we have baskets just like the one next to the TV in the office and kitchen with books and toys too. We also have some cubbies/shelves in the console table that we built full of books and toys and also have stuff in her nursery of course (in baskets and bins a plenty!).
xo,
s
Stephanie says
Thanks! I think I need MORE baskets and bins to contain the toy-r-us thing we got goin on in our house. you can never have enough baskets!!
:)
Briel K. says
I didn’t see anything wrong with the room before but now that you’ve bought new larger items it does look a lot more balanced! I love that chair!
Shelley says
I love the comment about a “fair amount of evolution” in your home! You have done more in a year than most people EVER do! Your home is beautiful and I LOVE that rug!
Christina says
I couldn’t agree more! I’ve been in my house for a little over a year, and it really doesn’t look that much different than the day we moved in. Good work!
Sherry from BC says
How are you organizing the ottoman? I just bought a similar one for my tv room & I think I am going to look for some baskets so I can keep it semi organized inside. Mine isnt as big as yours but I think it could easily become a jumble. I am planning to store some of my grandchildren’s toys there as well as some office supplies as that is where I have the wireless printer. Any tips would be appreciated, you have such amazing organizing abilities.
YoungHouseLove says
Yup, my goal is to keep things sectioned off in smaller containers within the ottoman (with baskets, bins, etc). Will post pics when I get it all worked out!
xo,
s
Sara Cate says
What a stunning change with just a few pieces! The room looks amazing! It was also so nice to read that you both decide on what big items to purchase – no always easy, but great for the relationship.
Nina says
LOOOOOOVE IT! The old rug was really fun, but everything looks a bit more polished now. Great buys!
Sarah says
Might Kermit go live in the guest room and the yellow PB rug move to the playroom? I can see Kermit tying in nicely with your guest bed headboard – or maybe it’s too matchy matchy?
LOVE these new developments, it looks amazing – and I loved it before!!
YoungHouseLove says
Always another possibility! We’ll have to see where we end up!
xo,
s
alg says
Beauteous! Love how the room is coming together :)
Diane says
Fantastic! It looked great before and even better now. And that ottoman is incredible!
Tanya says
I absolutely love that rug. I also adore the neutral base you’ve created by switching out the colourful art (which I loved until I saw this version) and that sue finally reappeared!
Sigh, love it all!
xx
Christina says
Oh, my gosh! I love everything!! Love the rug, the ottoman, that chair! Love the burlap in the frames! Love it all! Seriously, you two are busy bees! I’ll be checking back tomorrow for updates on the counters. Gosh, seriously! You two need to come to my house and help me out!
Nicole says
Hi ya’ll! What a transformation! So mature yet inviting! I love the new look! So much in fact that I have spent the better half of the evening looking for your rug in an 8X10 size for our living room (: I found one on amazon, yay! I’m worried about the color though… the advertising photo reads rather green- however the green in your photos reads more subdued (at least to my screen). Did you find the color true to the listing photo? Sorry for the long post!
YoungHouseLove says
I think, at least on our monitor, the rug looked more yellow and cream than it does in person. It’s more of a soft sage/celery green with nearly white geometrics on it (not very cream at all). Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Nicole says
Wow that was a fast reply! Thank you so much! I was hoping it was a sage-y green (: I hope it looks as great in our room as yours! Can’t wait to see your kitchen come together! Thanks for all the inspiration!
YoungHouseLove says
Good luck!
xo
s
Stephanie says
Gorgeous! I always thought this room was fun, but like always you guys just kicked it up a notch or three ;)
Heather says
Wow, everything looks amazing! I adore the old rug (and I was honestly hoping you were going to say that you were craiglisting it, but this one is so, SO pretty. It’s very elegant and just completely changes the look of the whole room.
Deidre says
Looooooove it all!!! The lighter grey chair plays off the burlap on your art. It looks so balanced and comfy. Just love it!!
Stephanie says
Is it weird that I was just wondering how the shag was holding up the other day?? Anyway, I bought an orange shag rug one year ago and now am regretting the purchase with our two dogs and soon-to-be crawling baby. Thanks for this post and for saving me from what I like to call the “gee, John and Sherry never buy anything they later regret” feeling. It’s nice to know changing your mind is never something to feel bad about.
LPalmiter says
Love the new rug! Can I ask where you got the blue and green lanterns (is that what they are???) on the desk? So fun and colorful!
YoungHouseLove says
Oh yes, those are from Home Goods a while back! Hope it helps.
xo,
s
Liz says
New furniture is soooooooo excittttinngggggg! Your living room looks so sophisticated now! Love the new, larger rug; it looks more balanced and anchored. (I’m having similar rug-scale issues…ew, that sounds gross, but you know what I mean!). Plus I love the more neutral art!
Amanda says
Love, love, love! That ottoman is to die for! And the rug? Gorgeous! We have the Karlstad too and recently DIY-ed an ottoman about the same size as yours to go in front of it and we love having that extra foot rest room! Love all the new stuff!!
Meghan says
LOVE IT. The pattern on the rug is great – you still get the color, but it’s a little more subtle and goes so nicely with the cream ottoman.
Jennifer says
Just a thought — why do you guys have that desk and chair over there? Do you ever use it, now that you have your nice office space?
YoungHouseLove says
Yup, it serves the ultimate purpose- holding Burger’s treats when he comes in that sliding door from doing his business. Haha. I occasionally also write thank you notes there (since they’re stored in one of the drawers). We also appreciate the light that we get from that lamp in that corner of the room since we don’t have any overhead lighting in the living room (so other than that light and the two on the console table it would be pitch black!).
xo,
s
kristen f davis says
looks AWEEEEEEEEESOOOOOOOOOOOME!! i love that rug – totally looks perfect now.
Trista says
The changes look great.
Megan says
SOOOO MUCH BETTER! I seriously adore that new rug and chair. And the ottoman is pretty snazzy too. How fun that they all came at the same time!
Emily @ NewlyWife says
It looks so good! As a relative cheap-o myself, I can totally get the hesitancy to spend my hard-earned dough. But that’s why we work so hard! When we find something we love, will enjoy for a long time and for a good price, it’s a good use of savings. I mean, you save money for a reason, right?
YoungHouseLove says
It’s so true! Why does it give us such fear? Haha. But it’s all worth it in the end!
xo,
s
Angela says
My favs are the ottoman & the grey linen chair. Especially the chair, it is so pretty & in the long shot of the room its lines really define the space at that table. I love the burlap change out too. You guys have such great vision, the room looked great, but definitely looks better with the new changes. I also love how you “yoinked” stuff you already had to finish the space.
Alison says
Wowzer!! I love it all so much, the new pieces make such a difference, it is so elegant but still fun! Where did you get those fun accessories on the desk?
YoungHouseLove says
Those colorful lantern jug things were from HomeGoods a while back! Hope it helps!
xo,
s
snosie says
I’m so sad to see the art change – I really liked that matchy mtachy! Oh well, things have to evolve!
Congrats on the big spendathon! Mine is imminent – as I move into my own (purchased) loft apartment
Ames says
It looks amazing! I loved the room before, but I REALLY love it now. True love.
Mike Grant says
The new furniture looks great and what a bargain. I’m a cheap-o as well and hate paying a lot for anything. We bought new furniture last year and I could not bring myself to pay $500 plus for an ottoman so I convinced my wife that I would build one. Check out my ottoman project it came out pretty good. http://www.mikegrant.com/2011/11/12/how-to-build-a-storage-ottoman-2/
YoungHouseLove says
Love it! That came out so well!
xo,
s
Paige says
$herdog, you’re such a baller! I love it!
YoungHouseLove says
You know how I roll.
xo,
$
Natalie says
The new additions to the room are lovely, great choices! Amazing how much bigger the room looks with the new rug too.
rebecca says
Speaking of Joss and Main…does this fabric look familiar? :)
https://www.jossandmain.com/Peacock-Ikat-By-Robert-Allen-Square-Pillow-in-Peacock~FSG1036~E154.html
YoungHouseLove says
Isn’t that funny? Love it!
xo
s
Nicole says
Ah I love the new changes, especially the rug! We just pulled the trigger on a $609 (plus tax bc we live in NYS boo) 10×13 rug for our living room and I’m so pumped for it to arrive!
YoungHouseLove says
Ooh sounds exciting! Good luck!
xo,
s
Audrey says
I think the old green rug would look adorable in Clara’s room or future playroom. It is so fun and would be a great way to reincorporate some color. I miss when her walls were bluish at the old house.
That said I ADORE the new living room! It is PERFECT!!
GreenInOC says
I love(d) Kermit so I was really disappointed to see a photo of the new rug even though I’m a fool for geometrics. I thought the proportions of Kermit were just fine. Didn’t think the ottoman table was too great and the chair didn’t seem worth it. Then…
The “after” picture is nothing short of stunning!
This would be why nobody should listen to me about design but worship at the feet of yours!
On all accounts, I was wrong, wrong and wrong!!
When I regret a big purchase (and they generally all are for me since I stress not only over price but country of manufacture and materials), I am not so cheery about it. Especially since I don’t have any extra space to store anything. I actually felt empathy nausea at the fact you were replacing that rug so soon!