Category Archives: Living Room

Living Room Inspiration: Shades of Blue & Green

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Design Build Love

Lately I’ve really been thinking about switching up our living room and family room. I’ve planned on bringing our leather sofa back into the family room and getting a new smaller cream sofa for our living room, but I might just make some changes first without spending any money. The reason… I want to make sure that I really like the family room the way I have it mentally pictured before I go buying the replacement sofa for the living room. The basic idea is to do some sofa-swapping and to inject a bit of blue and green into both spaces and give the rooms a bit more flow! To really solidify my mental image, I decided to put together a little inspiration post of beautiful blues and greens. Image Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 I’m absolutely loving the bold pops of colors off of the neutral furniture, and I am particularly in LOVE with the painting in the last picture, especially how it beautifully blends the colors! NOW… let’s see if I can convince the hubby that this change needs to happen this weekend! I’m not promising anything, but there may be bribes involved! HAVE A FAVORITE SPACE? WHICH ONE AND WHY? ANYTHING YOU PARTICULARLY DISLIKE? Blog this! Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Recommend on Facebook Share on Linkedin Share on netvibes share via Reddit Share with Stumblers Tumblr it Tweet about it Buzz it up Subscribe to the comments on this post Print for later Bookmark in Browser Tell a friend

Why I LOVE my Concrete Floors!

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Design Build Love

Concrete floors have been a long-standing tradition in industrial buildings and shopping centers, but they’re a somewhat new revolution in the common home. To many, the thought of concrete floors in their home is enough to make them cringe. For others, concrete floors would simply be too casual or unsophisticated. When people have never been to our home (or seen it online), and they find out that we have concrete floors in our home… the reaction is often a raised brow and a scattered attempt to find some kind of unoffensive comment or inquiry. Seriously, it’s funny to watch (sometimes I wish I had a quick-reaction camera to capture the moment to create a “wall of shock” somewhere in our home)! Most of the time, I just jump in and begin explaining how the concrete looks and functions to save them the embarrassment of the awkward, silent moment. It helps… kind’a. Long before our House Crashers episode was even a dream, I have been obsessed with the idea of finished concrete floors in our home and Eric quickly warmed up to the idea- gotta love the supportive hubby! Why was I so obsessed, and what is to love about polished concrete floors? 1- They’re eco-friendly; 2- They’re super affordable compared to many other flooring options; 3- They’re ridiculously durable- like you have to scratch more than and inch and a quarter off the surface of our floors before you get passed the stain, and they don’t stain at all because of the sealant (eco-friendly) that they put on the concrete; and 4- the cleanup is a dream- just sweep and steammop, no chemicals even allowed! Luckily for us, House Crashers took our dream and made it a reality in our very large living room! The end result was something of … Continue reading

Posted in Cool Things, Get Inspired, House Crashers, Living Room | 12 Comments

I Finally Did It

Posted on January 6, 2012 by Design Build Love

I finally got time to have that crazy Ikea rug purchase cleaned. In case you didn’t catch it here, I purchased an Ikea rug from their “as-is” section of the store. Typically, I probably wouldn’t have bought such a soiled rug, but I’d been oogling over this rug for months! After talking the crew down to $55, I had to have it, knowing that I would need to have it cleaned. Well, this is what it looked like when it came home with me… nasty! This is how the room looked before the rug… This is the room now! The room feels sooooo much more grounded and warm now! And the feetsies are just so much happier on this rug! WHAT DO YOU THINK? WORTH THE SWAP? Blog this! Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Recommend on Facebook Share on Linkedin Share on netvibes share via Reddit Share with Stumblers Tumblr it Tweet about it Buzz it up Subscribe to the comments on this post Print for later Bookmark in Browser Tell a friend

Posted in Living Room, Shopping | 9 Comments

Why We Decided to Have a Treeless Christmas

Posted on December 8, 2011 by Design Build Love

This year, as much as Eric and I love and look forward to cutting our Christmas tree, grabbing some wine, playing some Christmas tunes, and decorating our tree together… We will not have a Christmas tree this year. Normally, I would be really sad about not having a tree. But, this holiday season is a bit different. Law school exams are consuming two weeks of December, and another 8 days is going to be spent on beach away from home. So, since we will literally only spend two days uninterrupted at home from December 1st through Christmas and we aren’t hosting any holiday celebration, it just seemed a pity to waste a perfectly good tree. You see, we’re big fans of real, fresh-cut trees, so it would be a serious eco-crime to waste one! But, don’t worry, we’re totally not going to be total Scrooges this holiday season! Eric’s already put up our Christmas lights (pictures to come… I’m going to see how fancy I can get with night photos)! Also, we still fully plan on bringing out our interior holiday decor to DECK THE HALLS! Since we bought our home just over two years ago, we’ve hosted four major holidays, and we’re a bit spent. So, it’s a bit of a relief not hosting a Christmas shindig this year. But, in all honesty, I’m totally missing the idea of a party at our home, so I’m thinking a less-committal post-holiday party will be just the ticket! Obviously, I’ll keep y’all posted on whether or not that actually happen, but I expect that it will (we tend to through 4-5 large parties a year). Anywho… so, until next year, we’ll remember the wonder of Christmas trees past and future ones to come! This one was obviously pre-House Crashers Days… … Continue reading

Posted in Celebrations, Life, Living Room | 5 Comments

A Blast from the Past: My First Furniture Makeover Ever

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Design Build Love

My parents took a recent trip to our hometown in Northern (northern) California where my grandparents own a Mini-Storage. My mom is not much of a keeper, like me… we’re minimalists, BUT, my parents have a unit there where they keep sentimental and/or valuable items that can be repurposed later. Apparently, my wonderful parents thought I might enjoy a little blast from my past and showed up on my doorstep with this: When I was in high school, I went yard sale-ing with my mom and saw a very unattractive piece of furniture that needed love. It looked a little like this wood side table below, but it was in terrible shape, with vinyl floor tiles on its top and terrible bumps and bruises all over it’s wood. It looked similar to this one, but in awful shape! I insisted to my mother that I could restore its former glory with a thorough cleaning and some spray paint. At only $5, she decided to humor me. So, home we went with this little beat up, ugly side table. I got to work right away. I paint the hole thing silver, inside and out, and then applied a few coats of chalkboard spray paint to the top! Yup! I was doing DIY chalkboard table way before chalkboard surfaces were cool (except in classrooms of course)! It was really fun, to see this little table again. After all, it carried me through my teenage years, through college, and into my first few years of post-college independent life! And now, it’s back! It has made itself at home in our living room between our two peacock chairs! I know my “revival” was fairly rough, but I was quite proud of it, and at this moment, I just don’t have the heart to remake … Continue reading

Posted in DIY, Furniture, Living Room, Painting | 7 Comments

Would you do it? I did… but I might be crazy!

Posted on October 13, 2011 by Design Build Love

A while back I posted a little shopping trip of mine and highlighted a rug I really wanted for our front living room. The benefits of this rug over what we have is that it’s soft, 100% wool, neutral, and ties in all of our neutral colors in our home! In all honesty, the rug is simply perfect for us and I was 100% planning on buying it at some point, but at nearly $300, it just wasn’t in the immediate plan… Until I spotted it in the “As Is” section at Ikea! (sorry… these are cell phone pics) The only problem was that the rug was absolutely awfully dirty! I mean… how does this happen (you’ll see how below)! And… just in case you can’t really see just how dirty the rug is, here’s a close-up view of the corner where the rug’s sticker used to be… dirty, huh??? Now, I’m sure you’re asking WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD I BUY THIS FILTHY RUG? FOR THE CHALLENGE OF COURSE! OH YA… AND THE PRICE!!!!!! It was marked at $140, and while that may have been an okay deal, this rug was going to need professional cleaning. So, I talked to the manager of the as is section and she marked it down to $99. Still unsure if I wanted to spend the money for a rug I wasn’t sure I could get clean, I walked away. The next day, I returned and the rug was still there. I then talked to the manager of the day, and he marked it down to just $55! THAT’S RIGHT, I SCORED THIS RUG FOR ONLY $55!!!!!!! Part of the reason this manager was so willing to mark down the price was because the rug had been there for a while, and it … Continue reading