House Tour: Emily and Todd's Living Room

Here's Emily, sharing her beautiful living room!! We were going to combine her living room and dining room in one post, but it was just too long, so I'll post the dining room separately a little later today (Thursday).


"The first piece we bought for the living room was the couch. We went back and forth trying to decide what was more important, buying a couch that was smaller but fit the space or buying a larger scale, comfortable couch that we’ll have for 10 to 15 years (and go with us to the next house). This living room is also our family room so we wanted it to dress up when we needed it to and dress down when we needed it to. We ultimately decided on a Bernhardt couch. The couch is very well made and I’ve been impressed with how well it has held up.

"Above the couch is a series of botanicals prints cut out from this book and framed in Target gallery frames (spray painted charcoal gray).

"Remember the little pedestal table in my master that I mentioned used to be in the living room? It got moved upstairs when I found this fantastic garden stool at the flea market. The colors are amazing. I found the floor lamp for $20 at the same garage sale as the chair in my master bedroom. Again, Todd rewired it for a couple of bucks.

"I made two pillows out of Kelly Wearstler’s Imperial Trellis, two peacock blue velvet pillows (Parker’s pillow of choice when laying on the couch) and a middle lumbar pillow with orange pleated trim. My local fabric store sells this trim, but I needed at least 2.5 yards and wasn’t about to spend that much on trim, and they didn’t have it in orange. So one night I got out the iron and made my own pleated trim. This project was very tedious and when I told my seamstress friend what I did, she said I should have used her pleat tape. Classic.

"Todd doesn’t ask for much so when he told me he really wanted a leather “dad” chair I couldn’t say no, even though I would have preferred two matching upholstered chairs flanking the couch or one of these. We found the beautiful leather chair at Whitley Galleries in Zebulon, NC. It’s made by Alexander Taylor, it’s also a 10 to 15 year piece. I made the pillow using a simple cream linen and gray grosgrain ribbon.

"Since this room does double as our family room, the “perfect” layout isn’t really being applied here. If you center the sofa with the fireplace there is nowhere to put the chair and it makes watching T.V. awkward.

"I found the ottoman at World Marketplace only it was covered in a black Suzani fabric. I loved the shape and the base. We recovered it in a minty velvet material found at a fabric warehouse. Someday I would love to have it professionally reupholstered with the traditional deep tufts. When researching how to do tufts I found out that it’s actually very technical and way too complicated for my little brain.

"The console under the T.V. was made a local carpenter. I found him on Craigslist. He made the console with 100 year old oak, which is so cool to me. The basket underneath holds blankets and Todd loves the fact it is only possible to have this basket because we don’t have a cable box or any TV components by the TV. We were fortunate enough to have a crawl space and Todd has wired all of our “boxes” to the pantry on the other side of the house. So the mess of cables you might expect are all hidden behind the wall and under the house. He has asked that I emphasize that this is a very “hi-tech” home, but great effort has gone into hiding that fact. :)

"On top of the console Todd has been allotted his only personal space in the house…a 5 by 20 inch box for personal items and the remote.

"If you look closely you’ll see that he drilled a hole through the box to run the power cable for the charger underneath the box. You’re probably catching on that my husband will do anything to hide a cord. In fact, he would love nothing more than to write a crazy long post on how to hide all of your cords.

"I was whining to Jenny about decorating my mantel and how I couldn’t find anything to decorate it and make it my own. This post she did on mantels helped a ton. There are two things that made this mantel hard to decorate. First, it’s not very wide, like six inches. Second, it competes with the top of the bookcase to the right.

"I found the brass birds at the flea market for $3, which are also in the principal’s office on Glee, how cool is that?!? The glass candle sticks are from our wedding, I like the look of glass in small doses and they fit on the mantel, check. My mom always has orchids in her kitchen, so I’m very partial to them. I’ve actually told Todd I prefer an orchid to flowers, they live longer (3-4 months if you take good care of them) they’re simple and gorgeous, and Lowes sells them for $10 to $15. Remember the Davenport floral shop I mentioned in Parker’s bedroom post? I’m thinking of having them make me a faux orchid arrangement for the mantel. It’s impossible to beat the real thing, but it’s expensive to replace these even if it is only once a quarter.

"The small painting is another James C. Christensen called St. Brendon the Navigator. I actually won this painting in a drawing that an online gallery held a couple of years ago. I never win anything so to win this painting was kind of awesome. The vintage brass easel is from ebay. Easels are a great way to display little pieces of art or favorite framed pictures, I have several of them. The vase in front of the fireplace was a flea market find and the antique rice bucket is from a boutique in Utah. The beautiful mirror is this one at Ballards.

"You can’t see it very well, but to the right of the fireplace is an antique lawyer stack. Remember when I said my mom was a book hoarder? Well, my dad is a bookcase hoarder. When he was doing his residency he secretly bought and stored these stacks in their attic (at the time each stack was about $25). When it came time to move, he started pulling out all of these stacks and of course my mom was shocked. He thought she would be mad but she thought they were great. He restored them all and now my siblings and I all have at least one in our homes. But my parents have the most; I think there are at least eight more of these bookcases in their house. On top of the bookcase is a large terrarium from Davenport floral, personal pictures, and this little vase (I want all of these vases). To the right of the bookcase is a pair of Carl Bloch etchings."

Living Room Sources:
Couch: Bernhardt
Ottoman: World Market
Art above Couch: Botanicals, Butterflies & Insects by Leslie K. Overstreet, frames from Target spray painted charcoal gray
Leather Recliner: Alexander Taylor, Whitley Galleries
Antique Chinese Garden Stool: flea market
Mirror: Bellesol Mirror, Ballards
Console under T.V: local carpenter, can’t find his name and he’s not posting on CL anymore, but Carolina Farm House could make a very similar one
Lawyer Bookcase Stack: gifted
Brass birds on mantel: flea market
Small painting on mantel: St. Brendon the Navigator by James C. Christensen, won in a drawing but available through art galleries
Floor lamp: garage sale
Decorative bird cage: Gatehouse in Orem, UT
Decorative balls in bird cage: Pier One
Green pedestal tray on console: Gatehouse in Orem, UT
Brass easel: ebay
Orange Planter Box: Home Goods
Curtain Fabric: Braemore Fioretto
Rug: Green Front Interiors

Our thanks again to Jessica of JJ Horton Photography for the images.