One of my goals for the remainder of the year is to get a little bit more of our first floor “finished” before the Christmas tree goes up. I laugh as I’m typing this because we also want to get our guest bedroom finished, our baby boy’s bedroom started (and finished ha), the kids bathroom done… You get the picture. There’s clearly a lot we want to do and that will eventually get done (Lord willing!) but the living room doesn’t seem too daunting in my mind because we’ve already tackled the hardest part. Well, really I should say Aunt Monica tackled it for us…

My Aunt Monica stayed with us for the first couple of months we lived here. She’s a professional painter so she packed up her truck with quite literally everything she could potentially possibly need and she came up here to start painting the house while we adjusted to moving across the country and life as parents of three little ones. She’s the best. We all miss her and our time together and can’t wait for her to come back! I learned so much from her during that time with her that I think could be beneficial for you to know too. Every Monday I’ll be sharing a “Monica Monday” video on Instagram with you! I’m excited for you to know these tips. Some of them had my jaw dropped!

Back to the living room… The first project Aunt Monica got working on was our living room. The room was super dark due to the wood paneled walls and lack of sunlight the trees provide to the house. I knew pretty much immediately that we were going to paint it. Now let me clarify something. I actually think wood paneling can be so pretty and done really well depending on the house. For example, in the Rignell Ranch cabin (I say that like I’m friends with Raftyn which I’m not but I think if we met we sure as heck would be! She is a hoot and has the most beautiful design mind!) they have wood paneling that they left as is and it is AMAZING in there. However, since we’re leaning more into the colonial vibe of this home and because it was so so dark, we decided we’d paint it. I’ll be sharing a blog post on how Aunt Monica did that in the near future.

Here’s what we started with:

Choosing the colors for the living room was once again a doozy. When you walk into the home and look right, you see the beautiful built-ins in the living room and if you look left you see the playroom/homeschool room with the floral wallpaper. I wanted it to flow well. The first thing I do in cases like this to narrow down our design direction is look through recent inspiration photos, typically on Pinterest. Here are some photos I gathered that I loved and still really love every time I see them. You’ll notice a trend throughout these: wood elements, dark (black) tones, greens, and cozy whites.

With those elements in mind, here are the color samples I narrowed it down to. I reviewed them over Facetime (my best friend brought them over to the house to see in its light while we still lived in Mississippi since Aunt Monica got started before we moved in!). We eventually decided on doing the built-ins Farrow & Ball Off-Black (we loved this color in our Mississippi kitchen!) with Benjamin Moore Cloud White on the walls. We wanted to keep the paneling because we love the texture it adds.

I mentioned in this post that I think it’s so fun how our fashion and home design/decor style can so often compliment each other. I’d bet that the really fun and colorfully dressed mama I see at the park doesn’t have an all neutral, minimalist styled home interior. You with me? Well when I was browsing my favorite womens running shoes I not only found these sneakers that sealed the deal on my paint color selection in the guest bedroom but I also found these sneakers that added to the inspiration for the living room. I was already part of the way there with the black built-ins but like the inspiration photos above, I loved the combo of the green with the black so much that I decided to run with that for the rest of the room design. I found this beautiful rug that is great at hiding any stains since this room gets a lot of traffic and there’s bound to be a spill or two of some sort. Running with the inspiration from the sneakers, I plan on pulling in a green element with curtains to pull in the rug and use a black curtain rod. It always anchors a room well when adding black hardware. I once heard Brooke from Nesting with Grace describe it like eyebrows on a face. It’s so true. Curtain rods are an easy way to do that! 

One fun and maybe a little unexpected element I plan to add is a painted shoe cabinet. We tend to throw all of our shoes in the corner when we walk in the door. Not only do I think it’ll help for organization but I think it could be really fun to paint it either a pink, light blue, or maroon color.  All of which are in the rug. A little unexpected right? Which color would you choose? 

Another last thing I’m thinking of doing and a question for you… Do you see around the fireplace how some of the bricks are black? I’m considering attempting to remove the color on the bricks so that they are all red. I think it might be paint or something they added intentionally back in the day. I think I might be able to get it off because it isn’t on the areas that have gotten more “wear and tear”. I think I’d prefer a more classic red brick for all of it. Do you agree? Or do you think it’s a great way to tie in the black from the built-ins? Let me know in the comments below!

I’m excited for this to all come together. I’ll be sharing as much as I can on here and on stories here. Thanks for stopping by here today! I know your time is precious and I am so grateful.