Simple Updates... Bringing more light and life into a room!

As I look around my home I have been on a mission to make big changes that do not break the bank. Updating rooms by painting, or re-arranging furniture... things that do not take a ton of time or money but make a huge visual difference can be challenging and fun . 

I know I have suggested this in past posts ....

Did you ever try taking down all the art in a few of your rooms and moving them around? Creating new groups, maybe changing the frames? You would not believe what a difference this could make!

I did this with furniture...  the room settings and arrangement of the pieces I own.  

As we go through the process of thinking and re-thinking downsizing and what that would look like, we have taken multiple trips to furniture stores to try to get inspired.  The argument of "well if we are moving, we need to think about the new space, and not knowing how big it will be, we should hold off".  

This can paralyze you!!!

I love my family room, the size and layout work - but the furniture and carpet?  I was just tired of it all!  In light of the unknown space we might find, we decided to move the sectional sofa around and follow some of the "set up" trends we are seeing in stores; one being using the ottoman as a "backless" sitting area, not as a foot rest or coffee table!

Here is the room before...  you can see this beautiful wool rug (a big investment at the time).  As much as we loved it when we purchased it, we are "bored"... 

I wanted to re-arrange the furniture and add a new carpet that was lighter and would lift the feeling of the room.  The folding tables too, as functional as they might be, and we use them often just looked worn and old.  

** this will be another quick post next.. stay tuned!

Here is the rug we chose to replace this - a foot smaller in each direction; a larger scale pattern, with taupe, grey and touch of teal - matching perfectly to the room!

             Next we were in search for a coffee table and some other items to add to the room to "update" the look.  

When you spend so much time in a room you want a place that feels conversational and comfortable.

Re-arranging the furniture and purchasing the tables was the first step, while we waited the delivery of the new rug. 

• You can see how we inserted the ottoman as a bench seating between the chaise and sofa; purchased a few new pillows, a coffee table, side table (not shown here) and then the swatch of the new rug there to show how much different and lighter it will be!

We did not want to paint the room and we were not prepared to replace the sofa or furniture yet.    I looked in so many stores for the perfect coffee table and found this at a local Home Goods!  Loved the recycled wood look, and the fact that it was round, was so perfect for so many reasons!  It gives space to walk around without crowding the room, no corners to hit your knees/ shins and with our first grandchild on the way, we will have less corners to cover!      In addition, the legs for both new tables match the black accents in the room, including the furniture you cannot see in this photo, that the TV sits on top of...  it is important to look for pieces that "work together" when adding these small changes to a room.

I will spare you the multiple photos each time we added something... here is the final image below!

In the end, I updated the room with the following steps: