Just days before my baby was due last month, I got a wild hair, took a break from the nursery (which I still haven't put all the finishing touches on) and decided to do a quick redo to our TV room. We spend a lot of time in there in the evenings. It's upstairs near all of our bedrooms and tends to be a room we relax in after the kids go to bed.
I knew I would probably end up in that room a lot with the baby... nursing her, watching the kids play, resting, reading, watching TV, eating Second Dessert with my hubby (this is where we sneak sweets after the kids go to bed, haha) etc. It was my least favorite room in the house and I seriously dreaded going in it or taking people to it. The room tends to feel dingy because it's in desperate need of new paint and carpet, has only one small window and low attic ceilings. Until I got my creative juices flowing, it was just a mish-mash of colors in the random lamps, pillows, and blankets that somehow ended up in that room. I cringe just thinking about it again.
I knew I couldn't tackle the paint or carpet at the tail-end of my pregnancy but I wanted to do SOMETHING to this room I spent so much time in.
I had bought a striped rug at Crate and Barrel majorly on sale back in February. During that time, I intended to paint the room but ended up being waaaaay too sick to do more than watch cartoons with my kiddos and eat oranges. I kept the rug rolled up and never even opened it to take a peak until last month. I'm weird when I am pregnant.
Come September, I thought at the very least, I could lay the rug down and maybe change a few pillows. So, that's essentially what I did, but I was inspired to do a little more after I saw how much the beautiful rug changed the room and livened up the space (and my attitude!).
Here was my original idea for the room that I posted way back then:
Here's what I ended up with after some small and very inexpensive upgrades. I wish I had a before picture! Just imagine no rug, torn up carpet, random coral and blue pillows, two old lamps from IKEA and no decorations or cohesion.
I (finally) put down the beautiful rug and that made the room feel so much bigger. I had bought a gold pillow from TJ Maxx back when I originally started thinking about this room and set it out on the chair.
Then I bought two more gold pillows for the couch for Target. They have a great texture to them and I really love them!
In a desperate attempt to get her daughter to quit whining about her decorating issues, my mom gave me two black square pillows because she had them at her house and wasn't using them.
I dug the long black leather pillow and chunky knit throw out of storage and threw them on the couch as well. Just those few upgrades made a world of difference. It's amazing what a little but of direction can do for an otherwise chaotic room.
Perhaps the most exciting part for me were the lamps on either end of the couch. I had found them at the junk shop my mom and I frequent about a month before this. They were a great shape and a steal of a price so I bought them without knowing where I would use them.
Since they were a shiny brown color, my mom spray painted them with a can of black paint I had in the garage. The shades were something I picked up at a garage sale earlier in the summer and also didn't know exactly where I would use them. The bases and shades look perfect together and probably cost me only $15 total. That's amazing for a pair of lamps. I guess the lesson there is when you find something beautiful, classic and dirt cheap, buy it and save it because you never know when it will be useful in your space.
The acrylic table was already in the room (something I bought on Overstock.com 5 years ago). While looking for a couple accessories around my house that I could use, I found this black drawer I had put away and got it out again. It was a perfect & fun detail.
The lidded jar was also something I had bought back when I was thinking of re-doing the room. I set it in the drawer and now put our remotes in it.
After awhile, I was on a roll and wanted to make a few fun accessories. I picked up some feathers and glitter at Michael's. I simply used glue and a paint brush to adhere the glitter in the pattern I wanted for each feather. SO easy and fun.
Second, I attempted a yarn tapestry (back wall) which was A LOT harder than I thought it was going to be. It took me 3 hours and still never looked as nice and uniform as I wanted. The yarn kept not being the right length once it was tied to the dowel. I had to iron it because it was kinky in a lot of places. I wanted to make a few different ones for the wall but after one I. was. done. Pay someone on Etsy to make yours;)
I used some old side tables we bought at a garage sale 5 years ago to place the lamps on. They had been in our bedroom but I figured something else out for that room (something I actually like more; I love when that happens). The tables have a gold intricate base and a classic marble top. I liked the symmetry of the matching lamps and so the matching tables worked great with them. Another "buy for now, use later" inexpensive find.
I also made some curtains for the little doorways to the "hideouts" on either side of the room. We use one for storage and one for a play space for the kids but they have no doors and are something I would rather hide. I used iron-on hem tape and rods I already had to make and hang the curtains. It took about an hour to make two curtains and no sewing was required!
I hope to make this play corner a fun space with colorful art and toys for the kiddos. That will come eventually.
In the original moodboard I planned to put wallpaper up on the window wall but will be using less-expensive gold dot decals instead. I intended to buy the Lottie Dots from The Land of Nod but found some for half the price on Joss and Main the other day and purchased those. They are on their way to me and I will post when I get them up in the room.
Some day (let's be real here), I want a whole entertainment unit that span the length of the wall to store our DVDs, electronic equipment, board games and toys. We need more enclosed storage in our house.
I have some other fun ideas up my sleeve that I would love to get to in the next few months, and if I do, I will post about them here and on IG. I work at a real-life-on-a-budget-with-three-kids-and-priorities pace so things can be slow around here. Eventually I will paint the room and we will replace the carpet but for now it feels so much more inviting. The gold really does wonders to make a dingy room feel luxe and happy. I highly recommend a few pops in any room you feel less-than-enthused in.
XOXO,
Rachel
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