January 28, 2011

A visit to our living room

We changed a few things in the living room this year, the most obvious being our new, humongous TV. This Christmas we upgraded our 20-something-inch box to a 47-inch flat screen. I must confess that all huge TVs look pretty much the same to me. 38, 45, 52, 69, whatever. But the point is that now we can watch actors whose heads appear four times larger than life, which is super important.

The new TV created a problem for us, though. It wouldn't fit in the cheap, ugly cabinet that housed our old TV along with a metric ton of board games and movies. Our requirements for a new entertainment center were: has storage, can stand in a corner, preferably no wider than the TV, looks at least somewhat modern, and doesn't cost an arm and a leg. And that, my friends, is a challenge. After visiting four or five furniture stores with a tape measure and looking at every TV console on the internet, we ended up at trusty IKEA where we bought two pieces of furniture and stacked them: the Besta Boas and the Besta Adal. And then we attached a mounting bracket and slid the TV in with a shoehorn. I share all this in case you, too, are looking for entertainment center options. We love how this worked out.

Our other newish items include:
The Avenue Six Wall Street Coffee Table. Don't ever buy this. It took three tries to get a table shipped to us that didn't have damaged corners. And within weeks, the veneer started peeling off like a bad sunburn—whether you touched the table or not.

The Array bookcase in red from CB2, my favorite thing in the room when Alex is not present.

The Milliken Modern Times Uptown rug. Huge carpets usually cost a million dollars, give or take a few thousand, but we found this 8' x 11' rug when it was on sale for around $200. It comes in other colors, too.

Other cost-saving rug tips: Check out other styles by Milliken, including some solid options. Or stitch a few smaller rugs together like this. Or, enter a new giveaway I'm posting on Monday. Stay tuned!

58 comments:

  1. Fairly new blog reader, so sorry if you've posted about this before.

    Where did you get that absolutely FABULOUS painting on the wall between the red bookcase and the TV? It reminds me of a Jane Sassaman quilt.

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  2. It all looks so nice! So worth all your EFFORTS! Bummer about the table, though. :(

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  3. LOVE it! And all that light is so nice. (and I'm the same with TVs ;) )

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  4. Shannon, you're my new best friend. I painted it myself, to fill up some empty wall space. Now I'm off to find out who Jane Sassaman is!

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  5. i was going to ask about the painting too - it's awesome.

    i love your living room - the pops of color are so cheerful. it's very inviting.

    congrats on the new tv! (now you can probably see nose hairs LOL)

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  6. My best friends husband is a rug designer for Milliken! I assume he designed your rug! I'll let him know you love it! :)
    salonjuleen@gmail.com

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  7. Hi there, I am new to your blog also (just started following - yay!) and I have the exact same questions as a couple others folks: the great painting, did you DIY or purchase? The rooms looks so pretty, I love it.

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  8. Whoops, just saw the reply. I think its time to give my eyes a break from the screen. Well, your painting is great!!

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  9. I LOVE that orange pillow with the birds on it!

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  10. Great livingroom. I love IKEA but the closest one to me requires a 12 + hour drive to Boston and leaving Canada. I did have fun when we were in Charlotte this past spring and shopping there. The book shelf is so funky. And........now that I know I can't buy a picture like you have on your wall I'm a little bummed but hat's off for being amazingly talented!!! Love it!!!

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  11. I love the way you have teamed up that georgeous bookshelf and all the other orangeness with beautiful grey!

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  12. I love the sofa next to the windows - such great light! And the pillows are "just right"! Your walls look the same as mine - I think mine are Benjamin Moore 'straw'... goes perfect with my big orange sofa!

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  13. What a cool room!

    I'm struggling with a) how to disguise the fact that our new TV takes up about 99% of the room and b) how to convince my husband to let me buy one of those stacking bookshelves.

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  14. thanks for sharing about the entertainment center. my husband and i have been looking at the exact same console but were discouraged by their site saying it has to be mounted to the wall. did you just mount the tv to the stand itself?

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  15. It looks great!

    Just a little reminder, TVs needs lots of air around them in order to not get overheated, so you don't want to stuck it in a too confined space.

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  16. Your living room is gorgeous! I too love the painting!

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  17. Super cute living room!

    We had the same exact issue in our home after my husband talked me into a monster television. We also bought the Besta storage system, but didn't even think to stack them. We ended up completely rearranging our living room to accommodate them!

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  18. Than you sharing. Your living room is great - very clean and I like the color palette.

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  19. I love your living room! It looks so graphic and artsy. :) (And we'll just ignore the evil coffee table!)

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  20. I love the pop of color you used throughout the room. The cabinet looks lovely in the room, I love Ikea. Perfect place to get ideas and accent pieces.

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  21. I'm with Shannon, I was going to ask you the same thing...perhaps you should look into turning it into prints, you'd sell at least 2!

    Great room btw, thanks for sharing!

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  22. W O W i love your blog and especially your home! i would like to become your reader. but i didn`t find a button... please help me - would love to come back again =)

    yours dani

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  23. Sofa. Must know source! Wow. They are beautiful pieces and perfect. a.brandy.alexander[at]gee mail[dot]com

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  24. mmmIkea. We just went yesterday to buy the Besta shelving for my craft room to house the ridiculous amount of fabric I've accumulated. I was trying to celebrate by browsing the Ikea fabric until I registered the tight lipped look coming from the husband. I backed slowly away from the fabric.
    Super love all the pillows you've made. We haven't stepped up to a large TV so now a lot of our shows are cut off on the sides. Lovely.

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  25. I love this room---and ditto on your painting--awesome!!

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  26. Thanks, guys!

    SalonJuleen, small world! Tell your Milliken rug designer friend I dig it.

    Dani, look in my left sidebar under the search box. Click "subscribe to this blog" and choose Google reader.

    Meghan, the couch and chair were from Dania Furniture (love, love, love) several years ago, and they don't carry that model anymore. Boo! But they have lots of other wonderful things. For example, this couch.

    Erin, yep, we mounted the TV to the wooden panel in the back of the cabinet. The guy at IKEA assured us that's what it's for. We bought the mounting bracket at Best Buy. It was tricky, but we prevailed.

    We don't believe in attaching furniture to our walls. :) I'm sure furniture manufacturers all recommend it so they don't get sued if the thing tips over, but we ignore this every time. (Please don't follow my advice and sue me if yours does; I'm just saying what we do.)

    Because we don't live in a place that has earthquakes, and we don't have kids around who climb furniture like trees, we're not worried about things falling forward. And they can't fall backward because they're against a wall. Once you load up a tall bookcase or TV stand, that thing is so heavy it's not going to tip over under normal use. And we hate the thought of putting holes in our walls.

    We did put a bunch of non-slip thin rubber pads between the top TV thing and the bottom storage thing so the top can't be pushed off the bottom piece. The top piece won't budge now.

    Karen, we're not too worried about overheating since the TV is an LED model that uses 1/3 the energy of other types and is very efficient. At least, that's why my husband said when I asked him about this. I hope I got that right. Mostly I heard "blah blah LED energy blah blah blah 30% blah" and my eyes kind of glazed over at the technical details. And I have faith that IKEA wouldn't design an item like this if it caused everyone's TV to overheat. So far, we've had no trouble!

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  27. What a lovely room! Thanks for the rug source. I've been looking for something new that won't break the bank. I'm surprised you didn't get the orange colorway! Although I guess that would be a lot of orange.

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  28. Wow, you are so talented having painted that cute canvas! I'm impressed. It reminds me of Ikea fabric. Cute living room, looks cozy but modern, a very good combo!

    x Hilary
    oneclutteredlife.blogspot.com

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  29. You're so ingenious!

    Hey, I wanted to say that when we were looking for a rug for our room, it was impossible because the size was not ordinary. That meant expensive. Anyhow, I eventually picked out a giant shaggy carpet from the carpet store and had them cut it to custom size and bind it with their machines. They apparently do this with no extra charge, who knew? I bought a regular carpet pad of the same size too, which was cheaper and so much better than the "carpet pads" you can buy at Home Depot, etc.

    Whole project ended up costing $425 compared to the $1100 area rug, which I didn't even like as much. Yay!

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  30. Min, good tip! I always wondered how much it costs to have carpet bound. I'm totally surprised it could be free!

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  31. You know...I think that since they don't have to deliver and install, it makes it easy for them to make money and suddenty the binding isn't a big deal. The carpet people were the ones who suggested to me. I had never heard of such an option.

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  32. Love your blog!! Great orange minds think alike, I made similar cushions withe black birds. Love love love all things orange.

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  33. How thick and plush is your carpet? I love the look, but I'm worried that it would be think; I definitely want something soft and cushy underfoot....

    I love your whole living room. Can you come design mine sometime?

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  34. What paint did you use for your living room walls. I like the color.

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  35. I have always been a HUGE fan of your decor. Your room looks great.
    P.S. I have your mouse pad (green leaves), which I love BTW. It is the perfect combination of colors for my office. This week I'm covering a portable ironing board with your orange fabric. Ack. Now I can't think of the name--the one that kind of looks like dominoes.

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  36. i love your orange cushions, i thought i better walk out to my verandah and show you mine! snap! (oh, and I too love your bookshelf!)

    http://flic.kr/p/9eeAgh

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  37. Looks good! Your blog was recommended to me after I posted this: I Love You, Orange. I think I've found a new love.

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  38. I've loved your blog since forever.. so I am awarding you the stylish blogger award!
    To pick it up there are a couple of things you need to do -check out my blog post
    here: http://littlebirdinabeehive.blogspot.com/2011/01/stylish-blogger-award-winners.html

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  39. What a nice and sunny room. I really like the splashes of orange.

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  40. Thanks for sharing these resources, Jessica. It's nice to be able to not only be inspired by decor we see online, but also be able to research it further for our own endeavors!

    We're in the process of renovating a 1961 ranch and one thing I'd never given much thought to (hey, forgive me, it's my first reno!) is lighting. I clicked over to the Milliken site and found several bathroom light fixtures I'd bookmarked on another site for way less than the other place I found them. SCORE. I have a feeling I'll be sourcing much more through them (more reason to jump back over here tomorrow for the giveaway ...)

    Thanks again!

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  41. I am so in love with that bookcase:) very lovely room.

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  42. I love your sense of humor AND your decorating style :)

    Ikea is awesome. I'm disappointed that your cabinets didn't have uber-swedish sounding names. I want to giggle when I say them out loud ;)

    Thanks for the rug tip, too! :)

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  43. Love your living room!

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  44. love these ideas. And thank you for decorating so modern! I love it, and no one does it!
    Christine
    greatoakcircle.com

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  45. Wehaf, the rug is about 1/2" thick. Here's a closeup. It's not super plush, but to me it's nice. It's tidy and cozy, but without the eventual flattening you get from people walking on shaggier rugs.

    Anonymous, our wall color is Behr's Expedition Khaki—but the painters used some other brand and had it mixed to match the Behr chip we gave them.

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  46. Gorgeous space! I agree with you on the TV -- whatever the size, a TV is a TV :)

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  47. Love it! That is an awesome bookshelf! Would love one like that in my craft room!

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  48. I always visit your blog...I loved your blog. I love this living room very much.

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  49. I love that picture on the wall...

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  50. love the painting. who is the artist?

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  51. Yours truly. Thanks for the compliment. I'm glad that so far no one has said, "Man, I DETEST that painting." Of course, some people probably do, but this isn't Apartment Therapy where people would actually say it gleefully in the comments.

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  52. I know, it's so snarky on AT isn't it? Totally unecessary in my opinion.

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  53. And all of a sudden I see my very own IKEA-cussion-cover in your livingroom! Love it!
    Love the pictures...!

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  54. Love it! seems very comfortable! I love the orange cushion with the birds!

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  55. I love the painting. Did you do that?

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  56. Oops - helps to read the comments before commenting. I love your painting. I'm going to peruse your blog to see if there are more of your paintings. If not, there should be! :)

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