E: "I need decorating help, are you around?"
Me: "Yeah"
E: "I am destorying my den...trying to find something that works"
Me: "Haha I'll stop by"
E: "Save me..."
What happened was during Emily's little girl's naptime she tried to move things around and rearrange. When I walked in things were kinda all over the place. Here are a couple of before pics...
BEFORE:
Not bad, cute and cozy. However the large wall is a big canvas, what do you do with that? A quick solution is a gallery wall, good idea however I tend to think these only look really great in a catalog or magazine. Otherwise in real life things get crooked, off-centered, or the proportions and dimensions are all off, in other words they scare me.
These great bookshelves looked really cute but they weighed down that area of the room. To the right of the chair is the kitchen table nook which automatically weighs down/anchors that side of the room.
So here is the solution, it's not completely finished but it still gives you the idea. (The pics above are older pics Emily sent me, I wish I had some from when I walked in and along the way.)
AFTER:
Yes, obviously these are crappy iphone pics and I didn't move the toys out of the way but look past these things. We split the bookshelves apart and flanked the sofa with them. We then moved the floor lamp that was next to the chair over to the sofa. Moved the ivory table next to the chair and stacked some books with the table lamp on top.
We also styled the bookshelves. I typically would have removed a lot of these books but Emily said her husband uses them often so for practicality reasons we left them all out.
I pulled little nic-nacs from here and there and also organized the books. We put all of the pretty hardback books on top shelves where your line of sight is. All of the left over books that were paperback or had covers we grouped into colors. I think this really gave a more organized and styled look with so many books.
Emily mentioned that she has 2 big boxes of old Reader's Digest books in storage, I swooned. If you have never seen old Readers Digest books then you need to hit up google image because they are really cool and funky on the outside.
So the next plans for the room are rotate the mirror vertically to give some height on the wall, incorporate another pair of pillows in mustard chevron or stripe. Also flank the sofa with either another floor lamp or change the floor lamps to 2 apothecary floor lamps. She also needs some fun art over the chair and table/lamp sitting area. Next week we might make a trip to Emily's storage unit, I hear she has some treasures hidden in there so we might take a look to see what we find.
All in all, these pics don't do justice to how great the space looks. It's very inviting and homey plus it feels more open with the bookshelves anchoring the wall across from the breakfast area. I even thought it'd be great to go out on a limb and do a stenciled pattern or stripe on the wall behind the bookshleves. Nothing crazy, I'd do it in the same paint color but a different finish like a high gloss so that the stencil/pattern is really faint where only natural light or a good eye picks up on it.
This whole project only took an hour or two and the best part was that we spent nada dinero $0. We simply rearranged and used what we had. Funny how hung up we get on our own personal homes and spaces but then we go into someone else's and know exactly what to do.
Anyways, I had a lot of fun and can't wait to see the continued progress, thanks Emily for letting me share!
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