Living Room Refresh, and A Lighting Hack!

Shortly after we added the darker plank wall to the living room, I started craving something lighter on the floor. Although we still really LOVE our indigo Baxter rug, we rolled it up and put it in storage for now (maybe it will be a fall/winter thing? We'll see.) and unrolled this beautiful, moroccan-inspired, budget-friendly rug out. You can a lot of different places, but we ordered the 10x14 size right here.

For the price, we are all beyond impressed with the quality. It feels soft and cushy underfoot--soft enough to for the kids to roll around and play on--even though it's a synthetic material. We're using a standard waffle-like rug pad underneath (the same one we had before), but if you wanted even more cushion, you could definitely add a rug pad designed to do so.

We also did a little rearranging. We moved the full-length mirror that has bounced between our bedroom and the entry in here for now to balance out how the left side of the wall is much longer than the right. Because you can't step back too far in the entry, and see your full body, the mirror makes so much sense here anyway. I love how it bounces light and reflection around and makes the whole room feel larger, taller and airier.

Someone on Instagram asked if we plan on adding any contrast to the room. Looking toward the couch (which is the photo I posted over there on Friday), I can see why that question would come up. The rug, sofa and wall color are all very similar tones. However, when you're in the room, it's anything but one note. Opposite the couch, we have our two large dark leather chairs and you can see that dark paneled wall come into play, too. (The art print can be found here.) It feels a lot more balanced now, and it's nice to have a place for eyes to rest, too.

One, not so obvious, update we made was connecting all the lamps! There's no overhead light in the living room area, so before, we would have to manually turn on all the lamps, and worse--before bed, turn them off. Typing that out sounds so ridiculous, because it really isn't that big of a deal. Although it was a simple task, it was one of those annoying things. Last week, Chris connected all of the lamps so we could turn them all on and off with the click of one button that lives under the end table nearest to the door.

First, he snipped a small hole in the rug under one of the leather chairs so that we could feed that lamps plug to the other side of the room (We don't have any floor plugs, and although we have wall plugs on this side of the room, we thought it best if all the lighting plugged in behind the sofa so there weren't any rogue cords). We actually did this with our last rug, too. Cutting a hole in an area rug feels scary and wrong, but sometimes it's necessary and it's okay--great even if it means the room looks less riddled with cords and all the lights can be on one switch! I was surprised when we rolled up the blue rug, you couldn't even tell where the snip was!

We purchased one of these flat extension cords and taped it along the edge of the rug so it's undetectable walking over it. You're definitely going to want to get a flat cord though.

Behind the couch, this extension cord picks up the arc lamp and both connect into another cord connected to the foot switch, where the third lamp plugs in, too.

So when the time comes....

The whole thing makes me ridiculously happy. Our friends came over and complimented the new rug and I embarrassingly showed them the new lighting situation, too. I can't help myself. It improved the quality of life we experience in here. Ha!

So that's how we breathed new life into our living room with minimal money and effort. Winter was long, dark and cold around here and it feels good to walk into something light and fresh these days.

LIVING ROOM SOURCES