Ever since I finished the floors in the main living areas of our home, I’ve been having such a wonderful time decorating and playing around with new colors and finds!
I shared a full tour of our living room with you right after we moved in last June, and you got to see a few more details in my Christmas home tour, but I haven’t really given you a good look at this space in a while.
As a reminder, here’s what it looked like shortly after we moved in:
And here’s what this room is looking like lately (or at least it was, right before it got an influx of furniture from the master bedroom, while I work on the floors in there):
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Besides a few new thrifted finds, the only major changes in this space are the painted black tile fireplace surround and the walnut laminate flooring I installed myself.
You can also play “I Spy” with our two kitties – Abby (the black one, 16) and Midna (the calico, 2) have each claimed their own chairs in our living room and are rather possessive of their preferred napping places.
You can read more about this vintage carved teak bar and its back-story here. I haven’t changed the vignette on top very much, because it’s one of my favorite vignettes – I just added a spray of silk gingko leaves (found at Tuesday Morning) and a whimsical little carved wooden fox I found at a thrift store.
The fox’s weird little crescent-moon face just totally captivates me! I always feel a special affinity for foxes because of my love for the book, The Little Prince.
I recently shared my friend Jessica’s gorgeous greenery-filled home tour with you guys, and I came away from our photoshoot resolved to add more greenery to our home! Doesn’t it just breath so much life into the space?
With two cats who see fresh plants and flowers as an all-you-can-eat buffet, I tend to turn to artificial greenery in our home. In the shot above, every plant you see is actually fake!
I’m very choosy about the fake plants I purchase, because I want them to look as real as possible. And I try to display them in life-like circumstances as well. I “repotted” my faux fiddle leaf fig tree (a Craigslist find) in a much-larger basket to make it look more realistic, and I like to actually fill planters with dirt before plopping in my fake plants!
Sure, if you look closely, you’ll figure out my secrets, but it’s been a perfect way for me to bring greenery into our home that I can’t kill, and our kitties don’t eat!
Shop Similar Faux Plants:
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The two giant pieces of art that hang over the sofa were found at a thrift store (and later investigation revealed them to be original, signed monotypes from New Mexico artist Forrest Moses).
The thrifted brass drum table made its way into the living room and I absolutely love it in here. It glows like a lighthouse beacon in the afternoon sun and brought some circular relief to all the right angles in this space. It was thrifted, and vintage, but if you’re in love with its brassy goodness, Target is carrying a similar side table here!
Every time I share a shot featuring our coffee table on Instagram, I get asked where it came from. It was one of my best thrift store finds ever and I don’t think I’ll ever part with it!
Also, thanks to Instagram, I recently learned a little bit more about the channel-tufted leather club chairs I found last summer. Someone commented that they looked like Ward Bennett chairs, and I did a little investigating and they do bear an uncanny resemblance to one of his designs for Brickell Associates!
Bryan famously described these as “the band-aid chairs”, so I’m feeling pretty happy with my $40 Craigslist finds right about now.
The coffee table is sporting some recent finds – a thrifted jeweled metal orb on a stand, rosy marble coasters, a collection of vintage wooden Mahjong tiles in a brass bowl, and my absolute favorite new coffee table book, Mr. Ken Fulk’s Magical World.
It was a total splurge for me, but I used an Amazon gift card from Christmas to help offset the cost, and I have no regrets! I get completely lost in the huge glossy pages featuring designer Ken Fulk’s incredible, darkly whimsical, absolutely magical spaces.
My favorite beautiful books:
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I love the view from the living room into the kitchen! (Get all the details on my wild & whimsical pink kitchen makeover here.)
This shot helps you see how our whole house fits together – at the right edge, you can see down the hallway to the front door. This angle is also convincing me that I need to paint the inside of our front door a glossy black!
I brought more greenery in for this side of the room – this time, the fern in my thrifted wicker plant stand is real!
Apparently, “true ferns” (like Boston, maidenhair, staghorn, etc.) are considered safe for kitties, so I decided to risk it. The plant stand keeps this one high enough off the ground and far enough away from the arms of the chair that they’ve pretty much decided to leave it alone.
I can’t say the same for the big Boston fern I placed in our dining room though… I might need to switch to faux in there as well!
I found the black and tan lidded “snake charmer” basket at Goodwill recently. Thanks to the influence of a few Boho-loving friends and #thriftscorethursday participants on Instagram, I’ve started paying attention to the wicker and basket section of my local thrift stores!
Over on the vintage French sideboard we use as a tv stand, I tend to keep a few pieces the same from season to season. I switched the brass and glass light fixture-turned-terrarium back to spring/summer mode with a few faux succulents and moss rocks.
And I love displaying my thrifted Mudlen End cottages on a stand of antique books. It’s easy to swap out the colors seasonal as well, because I’m a total pretty vintage book hoarder!
My vintage obelisk collection moved from the mantel to this side of the TV, joined by some beautiful green books I found thrifting and a fun chunk of glass paperweight I found in our Hobby Lobby’s 80% off clearance section. (Speaking of which – does your Hobby Lobby have an 80% off section? You guys, it’s so addicting! Thrift store prices!)
And I’ve saved my very favorite part of the room for last – my spring mantel!
Of course, Mr. Spalding’s Fantastic Feathered Flying Machine (art I made from an actual U.S. patent image from 1889) hasn’t gone anywhere. And the oil portrait of my great, great aunt Dorothea is back in its place after Christmas.
But running with the greenery + warm tones idea, I brought in two other vintage thrifted paintings, some artificial plants, and a few new finds.
Here’s a closer look at the two thrifted paintings – the teeny oil seascape has such pretty colors and details, but I’m absolutely crazy about the one layered behind it!
It’s so ancient that the paint is nearly completely gone from the linen background, but I love the abstract colors that remain. At the same time, it’s a little heart-breaking because I so wish I could have seen the original painting… Yet it’s still beautiful, even in its complete deconstruction. Surely there’s a life lesson in there, somewhere!
I found this little fake rosemary plant at Hobby Lobby, and I thrifted the jointed wooden figure – love his little legs jauntily swinging off the mantel!
Get The Look:
As a inveterate vintage and second-hand shopper, I often wish I could tell you exactly where to find similar pieces! So I’ve done my best to pull together a few beautiful, reasonable substitutes for some of my favorite finds:
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I think that about wraps things up for the tour of this space! It isn’t “finished”, but really, what space in my house ever will be?
I’d love to switch out the ceiling fan for something a little more sleek (like this one I shared in my master bedroom moodboard.) And I’m planning to add curtains to soften the windows, but with 10′ ceilings and 4 windows, the curtains and hardware are not an insignificant cost, even if I go with simple IKEA panels.
But all in good time!
As every gatherer knows – good things come to those who wait, and spaces you love need time to breath and evolve – so really, when you think of it, constraints (like budget for example) are practically essential for crafting a beautiful gathered home!
So all in good time.
If you need me, I’ll be joining Abby in our matching club chairs, basking in the afternoon sun in our favorite room of the house!
Jessica Nickerson says
It’s looking so good! I guess I should be super proud of our cats for not eating plants… I forget that’s a thing. ???
Thanks Jessica! Oh my gosh, yes – our cats just must be particularly neurotic! They are obsessed with eating plants and then throwing them back up again.
Thanks for talking about your plants and cats y’all. We got our sweet Lilly in December and I’m wracking my brain trying to figure out what plants to use. She’s an inside/outside cat so maybe she’ll leave them alone? I’ve spent the better part of my morning drooling over your houses. I’m so inspired to do something DIFFERENT in my home and you’ve given me the courage to look beyond gray and black “farmhousy” style. Thanks!
you have SOOO many amazing finds that all work together beautifully. love your new basket, and i love that fox! i love foxes, too, but not because of le petit prince, which i had to read in french class and cringed at at the time…. truly a good story but when you’re struggling with the language not as fun!
Thank you Cassie! <3 Aw man, way to have a good story ruined, haha. Bryan loaned me his copy of the book when we were first dating, so it has a lot of sentimental value to me 😉
Your living room is just gorgeous Brynne.
Thank you Katja! ❤️ I’m eager to reclaim it from this latest project! It’s my favorite room in the house.
I love it! Your space is coming along beautifully.
Aw, thank you so much, Nicole! I love our home and I love getting to fill it with thrifted treasures!
Your living room really does look wonderful! I would never have guessed those plants aren’t real ones.
And I just love the weird little metal orb with its funny legs. 🙂
Aw, thank you so much! I know fake plants are so often considered a decorating “don’t”, but I love them! 😀
Really beautiful and your thrift scores are inspiring. Everything in thrift stores and even Craigslist down here in San Diego is so picked over, I’m glad that thrifting is popular but it makes me jealous that I don’t get the lion’s share of good finds like I used to 😉 I still find gems every once in a while, though!