The journey to our new living room began over one year ago.  At that time, we had ordered a sectional and were searching for new rugs.  I never would have thought that finding the right rug would take us one year, but it did.  And, I definitely didn’t know that searching for a new rug would lead us to 2 rugs and so much other new furniture for our living room!

I have so many pictures of rugs in my phone, it is ridiculous….we were looking everywhere.  We also searched online, and even bought one rug and returned it!  I swear our couch is like a chameleon, each time we thought a rug would look good, the color would read different by our couch.  Then, one day Bob and I went to Interiors in Lancaster.  We were searching for rugs and one of the interior designers on staff asked us if we needed help.  She sensed our frustration, and she let us know that Interiors offers FREE design service if you purchase furniture there.  At the time, we weren’t sure what our plan was past getting a new rug, so we took her card.  We also found a rug that day.  We bought it and took it home and both loved it, but it was the wrong size and it couldn’t be ordered any bigger.  We struck out again!

So, we talked to the designer, Tina, and decided to utilize the design services available.  For our first meeting, Tina came to our house to see our living room, take measurements and get a better idea of our style.  We also browsed more rugs on her ipad to see if we could narrow it down some more.  At our second meeting we went to the store and Tina gave us a new floor plan for the room, and we looked at more rug samples.  In the floor plan, Tina had laid out a way to make the right side of the fireplace no longer the odd corner in the living room.

With the new layout, and a rug to anchor the seating area it makes it a comfy spot to sit in our living room.  And, the added bonus was that this is the rug we loved that was too small for the main area of the living room.   We custom ordered the chairs and ottoman, which was part of our second visit at Interiors.  You really sink into the chairs!  It is great.  The little table is the one we had.  We looked at other options, but haven’t found anything we liked better.  The mirror was on another wall in the living room and just got relocated to here until we find other artwork we like.

This view shows everything else we did, as well as the long awaited rug.  The big challenge with the rug was that we needed a 10 x 10, so it really limited our options.  We ended up with a custom ordered rug from Carpet Mart.  We chose the pattern and each of the colors for our rug, and it goes so well with the room.  It is quite a bit different than how it looked before.

We finally have furniture that fits the room, and not just what we had and made work.  One of the big differences that Tina recommended was adding a console table on the wall that is behind the sofa.

I love this table.  It is so nice to have some color in the room on the furniture.  The painting is new too.  Surprisingly, at one of our meetings at Interiors, we came in and Tina had many accessories sitting in the room and the one was this painting.  Bob and I both really liked it, which is a miracle…he and I seem to struggle to agree with art work and rugs! 🙂  She also had the tall lamps in her room display for us.

Another change for us was to have a trunk for our “coffee table”, but it has worked out well.  I like being able to stash the blankets inside it when they don’t need to be out.  It is rare, because I’m always cold, but I’m sure they will get put away more often this summer.

It was fun to mix and match all of the accessories and furniture.  While I immerse myself into homes and DIY, I am admittedly not very good at an overall design or plan, it usually just happens for me.  It was interesting to work with a plan and piece it together step by step.  It took us quite a bit of time over the last year.  While the end tables are similar, they are not a set, which I like.

And it is the same with the lamps, they are not sets, but they all coordinate well together.

It is great to have end tables on both ends of the sectional and to have the light on the them.  It was only during the designing process that we put the outlets in the floor so that we could add lamps to end tables.

All of the lighting makes our living room feel much warmer.

Another item we added was more pillows to the couch.  The additional darker pillows really add more dimension and help to tie in to the other colors in the room.

Here is the room from another angle.

The little side table by the window was one we had and used in a different spot in the room before, but moved it here.  The amp on the bottom is connected to the outdoor speakers, so it is necessary to have something in this spot to power the music outside.

Overall, we couldn’t be happier with our new living room.  It really suits us and is so comfortable and homey, which is exactly what we wanted.

Do you plan your rooms in advance, or do you piece it together?  Have you ever worked with an interior designer?