Slowly but surely, some really fun changes are happening in my home, and the living room is becoming transformed to a place of peace, rest, and fun! Most importantly, it’s a place where we all enjoy spending time together, and while I attribute that to familial affection, I also like to think that my recent decorating decisions have something to do with our enjoyment of the space. Check out this post from a month ago to see what I had originally planned for this room’s little makeover.

I’ve been focused on limiting the color palette of the room, and actually severely decreased the amount of art on the walls. In turn, the space feels calmer and the decor more intentional. The most dramatic change so far has definitely been the installation of shelving around the television in lieu of a gallery wall. I love the balance this wall of shelves has given to the room, and the additional surface space for houseplants allows for more chances to add life and in turn more calming, natural elements.

links to above products: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / rug

This little living room refresh has turned into a bit of a bigger deal than I had originally planned (should’ve seen it comin’!), which prompted the selling of some of my old beloved home accessories in order to buy new things. (If you follow me on Instagram, you most likely caught wind of the sale, and you can still check out available items here!) I sold furniture, art, lamps, rugs, and more, which allowed me to buy some new things that aligned better with my vision for the space. See the link list under the image above to check out some of the new additions to our living room, though the toy storage credenza was a DIY project as featured on A Beautiful Mess, and my live-edge coffee table was part DIY/part Craigslist sourcing, and I’ll share more about that later.

Deciding to put doors on our toy storage situation was a huge change to my own enjoyment of this space! It’s minimized a lot of the plastic visible in the room, which makes the everything else feel more put together, even when there are toys all over the floor. Bonus— the kids don’t drag out as many toys because there are now doors between them and the toy bins!

Also, opting for a more organic shape coffee table was a great way to break up all of the angles and straight lines of most of the items in this room. Thank you, to those of you who suggested a different coffee table for this space! I’m in love! Adding a couple of knit poufs also helps with this, and is a great place for kids and extra guests to pop a squat next to the coffee table.

I did move the art (ski jumping guy) from the fireplace wall to over the sofa, and now there is nothing by the fireplace except for some plants— including a big ficus tree, all of which fill out the space quite nicely. So I’m not sure if I actually want to hang anything above the fireplace, or just leave it up to the plants to adorn this corner of the room. I’m digging the more minimal vibes of that white brick fireplace wall, so for now, plants it is! (Check out the new ficus in this recent post about houseplants.)

 And finally, the limited color palette really helps tie together everything in the room, which encompasses the media wall, the seating area, the play area, as well as the office area that all coexist in this room, which is actually a decent size for such a small ranch. (Keep in mine we have no other living space nor basement in our home.) Choosing something besides off-white for a rug helps ground the space, considering all the walls are white, and the dusty pink rug in the seating area provides contrast against the taupe terrazzo floors elsewhere in the room.

Things are coming along quite nicely in here! I’m just waiting on the new sofa slipcover from Comfort Works and a couple of styling touches, and then I’ll be ready to share the grand reveal with you all! I can’t thank you enough for your input on my last post about the living room, and all the helpful comments and encouragement on Instagram. The living room would be looking mighty different if it wasn’t for the input, and it definitely wouldn’t be coming along as well. So, thank you! -Mandi