before + after: our modern living room

Full Disclaimer: This post is sponsored by Minted and RugPad USA. As always, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

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Two and a half weeks after moving into our new house I'm ready to share photos of our finished living room! We worked with contractors to do most of the work to the room before we moved in or else we would still be working on it! Here are a few photos of the room before we started work: 

This is the view of the living room from the kitchen -- the chandelier is blocking an old (and pretty awful) white ceiling fan in the living room which you can see below: 

Our plans to makeover the space included the following: 

Remove the green and red plaid window treatments (yikes!), paint the walls Sherwin-Williams Zurich White and the trim and tray ceiling white. Remove the carpeting and install new hardwood floors. Refinish the existing hardwood floors in the kitchen and extend the hardwood floors into the living room. We used a 50/50 mix of ebony and jacobean Minwax stain for the dark color of the new floors. Remove the arches and straighten out the top of the bookshelves to have a clean, modern look. We decided to leave the french doors (they go into Violet's playroom and I like the option of being able to close them when I want). Here's my mood board for the space:

reclaimed wood coffee table / washed velvet pillows / buffalo check throw pillows / navy blackout curtains / curtain rod / birch logs / Minted Art Prints: Leaf in the Green / Marbled Wake / Rocky Coast / Pamela / Fields of Blue

I bought the semi-flush ceiling light fixture that I included in my mood board, but it was way too small for the space. I ended up putting it in H's office and buying a larger fixture to put up in it's place.

I splurged on the gray and white mid-century heathered basketweave wool rug that was on my wish list -- my shopping budget will be taking a major hit to pay it off over the next few months. But it looks great with our gray sectional and it adds a lot of warmth to the room. I also love that it was made in a fair-trade certified facility. The rug is also very soft thanks to my rug pad from RugPadUSA. The Superior Lock rug pad keeps our rug in place so I don't have to worry about the rug moving. And funny story-- H wasn't 100% sold on the rug at first -- he argued that it covers up too much of our new hardwood floors, but he loves how soft the rug pad makes the rug!

I chose a few great pieces of art from Minted for our bookshelves: the Leaf in the Green and Marbled Wake prints are displayed behind our record player. And I'm obsessed with the Rocky Coast print on our mantle. It makes such a pretty statement and works so well with the navy accents in the room! I paired it with two other coastal photos from our trips to Greece and Italy, and put them in similar brushed silver frames.

And finally the AFTER photos!

I fell in love with this fireplace the first time we visited the house. It's HUGE -- at Vi's birthday party I was able to fit seven (!!) people in front of it without a problem. I can't wait to see it decorated with stockings and garland for the holidays. I initially wanted to paint the brick white, but I'm glad I left the light stone alone. I like how the light brick stand out against the white built-in bookshelves.

I can't wait to finish up the other rooms in our house! We have plans to eventually remodel the kitchen, but it works for now! If you're interested you can see my plans for our sunroom + dining room.
-xo-

Jillian