Liven Up - This Living Room

We lived in an apartment for 2 plus years after getting married. We invested in a few pieces here and there, like our bedroom set, but overall we wanted to wait until we felt settled in Dallas. My original vision for the living room was something like what you see below. It's been over a year since we moved in and there is still a lot left to be done! So, I thought it would be nice to recap what little progress we have made so far. 

After countless discussions about the perfect color we could both agree on, we went with Turkish Tile from Sherwin Williams. It actually looks very different in person than online. 

Overall the vision board isn't all that creative. I'm not 100% happy with what you see...but I needed to put everything together to visualize it before starting to invest in big furniture pieces. It's still a work in progress and my ideas tend to change on a monthly, if not daily, basis. 

It took us close to 6 months to finally make a decision on our sofa. I really wanted a white tufted, elegant one to begin with. I wanted the room to be very elegant and feel high end. Well, we soon agreed that neither of us is very "elegant" or "high end"! We like to eat on the couch from time to time, like to put our feet up at the end of the day... on weekends we love to binge Game of Thrones or Scandal from breakfast to lunch time at least... during which time neither one of us looks very elegant to say the least! 

We finally settled on this couch by Jonathan Louis. We were able to customize the shape and fabric we wanted and we both really love it. Besides that we have also added this Lippa Table. Originally, I wanted our dinner area to be the only place we eat. I really didn't see a need for another table since both spaces are close to each other with the kitchen in the middle. However, I was wrong again! We hardly ate in the proper dinning area. The main reason being that Chirag and I usually catch up on our day while we're cooking dinner (or while he watches me) and the little time in between dinner and our evening workouts, we like to watch on some tv. I like the table we picked because it has a little mid-century modern feel and I think that's kind of the style we are both always attracted to. I added these chairs from Target and mixed them with chairs from our formal dinning table, so we have 4 chairs at both the eating areas. 

The other patterned chairs you see on the side (picture below), we already had from our apartment and we bought the round side table to go between them. I like this little nook next to our fire place. We both have big families that visit us fairly often and lots of friends here now. We love to host game nights, dinner parties, etc. so having lots of seating was very important for me. We can very comfortably seat 8 people and pull chairs from the two eating areas for additional seating. 

I absolutely adore the gold bar cart from Target. But unfortunately it was just too small for our space and I really couldn't think of anywhere else to use it. So, we ended up moving a buffet cabinet which was too small for our formal dinning area into the "bar space" and love it. 

This huge wall is what I'm really struggling to bring the whole space together.

Seems like we've done a lot, but there are several updates still needed:

• Large Wall Art - The wall in our living room is huge! The clock ended up moving above our fireplace, so currently we put this art work from our apartment there, but I'm really not a fan of it. I originally thought of doing a gallery wall, but Chirag really didn't like the idea of putting so many holes in the walls. Plus like I mentioned earlier, we do like a clean, minimalist look overall. So I'm thinking finding a large art work that would have major impact.  I'm debating trying to paint something myself! (yikes!)
• Large Rug - currently we have the rug from our apartment and it has a similar pattern to the one in the vision board, but it's too small for the space and doesn't anchor the room properly. I'm thinking of going with a large one and maybe solid textured one versus a pattern. 
• Curtains - This has been the hardest thing to find. I need 102 inch curtains and I can't find any decent ones anywhere! I want them to be a bit sheer because we love all the nature light that comes in through the main floor. I have looked everywhere, so the search continues.
• Coffee table - We are currently using the one I have from when I was in pharmacy school.... that was ages ago now! Plus it's a glass top and has a few scratch marks now. The one in the vision board is glass too, but that's not exactly going to work anymore. I'm loving something like this. But I'm really not sure how that wood is going to go with the other furniture pieces. We have a lot of black furniture, mixed with the white lippa table, and sliver glass side table. Oh lord, what am I thinking?!

So, lots to still do!!! I'm excited though... the earlier part of the year was super busy and I was in the midst of changing jobs, studying for my specialization certification, and other things. I'm really hoping to focus on this room again. The goal is to at least update the 4 main things listed above. Hopefully in the end the space will really liven up and be a place that reflects our personality and style.