5 years of our Living Room

We are celebrating 5 years of living in and renovating and loving our home. It's hard to believe it's been 5 years, but then I think about all the milestones we've hit while living here (we brought home 2 babies!) and all the changes we've made and it's crazy we haven't lived here longer. Last night, we published a fun 5 year House-iversary quiz between Chris and I on CLJTV where we try to guess each other's answers about everything from our least favorite projects to how much longer we'll live here. You can watch the short video here.

Today, I thought it would be fun to look back at all the changes our Living Room has undergone in the last 5 years. Some rooms in our house we do and then they're done (laundry room, kitchen, bathrooms, the family room downstairs), and then there's our living room, that has had more looks than Oprah. Many of these stages I even forgot about!

Our living room in 2013 when we first moved in. 

We immediately painted all the walls and plopped down furniture from our last house. It was immediately clear that this room was a lot larger.

There was a short period we moved the television to the main living room wall. (It never felt right since I never grew up with a TV in the main living room space). The arrangement did allow us to move our larger sofa farther into the room facing the TV which took up more space. #workwithwhatyougot

Here, we found a coffee table that was more proportional and I painted the patio doors blackI painted the patio doors black which I still stand by is the quickest, easiest way to add punch to a room.

Hey-o. We bit the bullet and purchased a 10x14 rug that fit the scale of the room a lot better. I added a gallery wall to the other side of the patio doors to help balance out the large window in the dining room.

The TV lasted not even a year in the living room before we moved it elsewhere and moved both of our couches into the living room for more conversation.

Whoa! Two of our most popular projects in one picture. Our long art ledge and the engineer prints of the girls. We peaked in 2014. Oh yeah, all of these changes up to this point happened in a year and a half. This must have also been when Faye, the baby at the time, was getting more mobile because we traded out our coffee table for a softer ottoman/bench.

In the spring of 2015, we added a large window to the living room and finally the wall that I had been fighting since we moved in felt right. The window really should have been there all along.

We were happy with this arrangement for quite some time. It felt cozy and collected. We swapped the coffee table again.

And then tried to fill the awkward space to the left of the sofa (instead of just letting it be, for goodness sakes).

This was about the time that we DIYed the dark planked wall in the living room and so we needed/were ready to lighten up the rug. Aaaand another attempt to fill the space to the left of the couch.

We got our Charly sofa! And some tall greenery and another new coffee table. I simplified the frame of the art and everything started feeling a lot more balanced and restful.

Most recently, I stopped fighting the large empty space to the left of the couch all together. In fact, I have embraced the breathing room. I swapped some art. Spray-painted that arch lamp (that we've had here throughout the entire 5 years!) black. Added some contrast and texture in pillows.

I'm feeling good with where we are. But to be honest, every step of the way, I was feeling good. I don't think I change things so much because I'm not happy with how a room is looking (although that could factor in at times), I think it's more about my love of experimenting and my desire to push our home's potential farther. I see so much growth in my personal style through these photos, too. From nothing, to all the things and back to not a lot. You've come a long way, living room!

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