living room furniture

Summer Refresh with Serena & Lily

June 26, 2020 No Comments

This post is sponsored by Serena & Lily

Hey guys! So, if you’ve been around here for a while then you know how I love switching things up around the house! For a homebody, like I am, it really helps keeps things feeling fresh! Also, rearranging a room might just be my favorite way to get a work out in. When Serena & Lily reached out and asked if I wanted to partner up for a room refresh, I didn’t have to think twice! If you aren’t familiar with Serena & Lily, they are a furniture and home goods brand with breezy California vibes. Think casual and coastal, with classic American influences and modern lines. I, for one, am a BIG fan.

I have been eyeing this chair for months (told ya I was a big fan) and thought it would be the perfect addition to our living room, especially for the summer months. I love how it doesn’t feel heavy visually, and still even allows light to flow through it. The lines are clean, modern and lend themselves to a mid-century style that I always gravitate towards. Serena & Lily also carries cushions for the seat and I’m thinking about ordering them next. The chair feels so well made with its sturdy rattan frame and I love the deep seat too!

The two chairs feel much more balanced in our living room and really create an inviting spot for conversation. Can’t wait until we can have guests again!

Another favorite from Serena & Lily is this little stool. I have used this little cutie in a variety of spaces and I swear, it looks good everywhere! It’s been hanging out in our newly remodeled bathroom and is a great spot for wash cloths, pretty display soaps, or a nice candle….oh yeah, I forgot, PLANTS! How could I forget about plants?!

I also have one more really fun item that’s coming soon so stay tuned! I can’t wait to show you guys! And just for fun, I thought I would add a few more of my faves from Serena & Lily right now. Summer is the best time of year to refresh a space if you’ve been thinking about changing things up! Just simply click the picture! Happy shopping, friends! XOXO

Decorating, Living Room

The most popular seat in the house

May 21, 2020 No Comments

This post is sponsored by Sixpenny

Hi guys! Hope everyone is doing well during this mess that is COVID, and everything that goes with it. All this time at home has recently allowed me to really see how we use our living spaces since we’ve moved into this new (old) house of ours. It’s funny to think about how I thought we would be using our spaces vs. how we are REALLY using them. I usually try and provide the most seating as possible for guests in our living room, so that everyone has a comfortable place to sit when they visit. But, quarantine means less visitors (ahem…no visitors) and I set up an additional TV zone upstairs in the loft for the kids. I mean…how much Blippi can one person take before they want to pull their hair out?! This meant that I spread out my extra living room chairs throughout the house which left the living room feeling a little bare. So when Sixpenny reached out and asked if I wanted to work together to refresh some seating options at our house, I jumped at the chance!

If you aren’t familiar with Sixpenny, they are a furniture brand that specializes in premium furniture – all natural fabrics, down fill (or poly fill as the vegan option), luxury leathers, solid wood frames, and so much more! Somehow, they still manage to offer all this at digestible prices and if in stock, ships within 2-3 weeks. Pretty great, right?! Now you can see why I was so excited to work with them!

I wanted a comfortable chair to accent our leather sofa for the living room. Something that you could curl up with a book, or for some serious Netflix binging. And then I found Gabriel…

I selected their Gabriel Chair in the medium weight linen, and the poppy seed color. I like that the cushions are down filled as it allows for easy fluffing. And do you want to know the best part? It’s slip covered, which makes throwing this baby in the wash a breeze. Now I won’t be holding my breath every time my three year old is running amok with a chocolate chip cookie in hand. Peace of mind for the win!

Nate and I have been racing to the living room each night after we get the kids to bed to see who can score this cozy new spot for the evening. Spoiler alert – I’ve won the last three nights! The poppy seed color compliments my leather sofa and the colors in the rug too, don’t ya think?

I love the linen and its casual vibes work so well in our home. And have a look at all this texture!

I also should mention how seamless Sixpenny’s ordering process was. After I selected my Gabriel, it shipped within two weeks and was delivered to our front door in less than a week after that! Usually, Sixpenny offers white glove delivery, where they come right inside your home, unbox the piece, and then place it wherever you’d like. But, during COVID, they are exercising an abundance of caution (which I appreciated), and just left it on our front porch for us. Completely contact-less!

Every time I see this view, it puts a smile on my face. And I would be more than happy to answer any questions you guys might have about Sixpenny or the ordering process! It was a truly a breeze, and I am still totally smitten with Gabriel…although I call him Gabe now, as we’ve gotten to know one another a little better. Ha!

XOXO, Courtney

Decorating, Living Room

Living Room Updates and A Comfort Works Sofa Cover Review

May 31, 2018 10 Comments

Hi everyone! We are almost to the end of the school year here and these last few weeks are jammed packed with activities, field trips, and even a spring concert. Counting down the days…almost there!

I am blaming spring cleaning but we have been on an organizing kick over here. With the house feeling all fresh and clean, I realized that the living room needed a little facelift. This room is the most hard working room in the house. It lives directly off of the kitchen and is the hub of all activity. So, when the lovely Felicia contacted me from Comfort Works and asked if I wanted to review their replacement slipcovers, I said, YES!

Let me start by saying that we have been buying IKEA sofas for almost ten years. They are durable, stylish, and affordable. A combination that I believe to be perfect for families with small kids. When we bought our house last year, we bought a big sectional (the Norsborg sectional with a chaise) for our living room and love the amount of seating that it provides. It was a darker gray and that is the general tone that I wanted, but in person, the material felt a bit tired (maybe because the baby uses it as a napkin on the reg? hmmm.).

Comfort Works makes beautiful replacement slipcovers for IKEA sofas and custom slipcovers that will fit whatever style of sofa that you might have. Isn’t that cool? You get the look of a very high-end sofa without spending the money! Yes, please. I picked some fabric samples and they arrived in a week. Right away, I was impressed with my options. I couldn’t have made a wrong choice as they were all so lovely.

I picked the Kino Shadow in their heavy duty material because…well, KIDS. This fabric felt like the perfect choice for us with its darker tone and can even be machine washed. Seriously! Machine Washed! We also decided on their Bailey Wooden Sofa Leg to replace the old, chunky ones that originally came with the sofa.

When our cover and legs arrived, I knew we made the right choice! The cover is beautiful, full of texture and the color is a deep, saturated gray. The quality is GOOD. And the best part? My husband and I both agreed that our replacement cover was easier to put on the frame than the original cover from IKEA. I loved how Comfort Works made it a no hassle process with the help from their little prompts. So smart, right?

All of the pieces fit like a glove and there wasn’t any excess fabric.

Overall, it was a pretty painless process. Even with our big sectional, we had everything taken off and our new cover put back on in less than an hour.

I am so excited about our new replacement slipcover and the new look it gives my IKEA sofa! It really feels like a new piece of furniture. Hope you guys love it as much as I do!

This post is sponsored by Comfort Works. All opinions expressed are 100% my own.

Decorating, DIY

Living room Updates

August 5, 2016 No Comments

I got lucky last weekend. Really lucky. I was perusing Craigslist on Friday (not unusual) and that’s when it happened. I found a mid-century dresser with beautiful lines for $200. I am always looking for mid-century furniture (especially credenzas and dressers) but usually can’t find them for under $1000 because they are wildly popular right now. They are beautiful and versatile and can be used just about anywhere in your home. I found a big modern dresser that lives in our bedroom a few years back that I have yet to fully strip so that I can restore the finish.

Usually, when I inquire about something on Craigslist, whether it is via text or email, I never hear anything back. I am pretty unlucky. So, when I saw this dresser, I thought I better have Nate try and reach them so we would have a better shot. He is the opposite of me, he can buy/sell just about anything on Craigslist. If I were a 93 year old man, I might say that Nate could sell a glass of water to a drowning man. Anyways, back to the dresser.

So he arranged for us to go and look at it the next morning and when we got there, we soon saw that it was in bad shape. Big chunks out of each side and the top had been torn off. Someone had attempted to fix these imperfections at some point by filling some of these holes with a material that I am thinking was wall patch and then covered that with a coat of light yellow paint. Yes, light yellow paint was their answer to matching the original finish of the dresser. Even with some major sanding and repairing the missing pieces with wood filler, this baby had lived a hard life. It was rough. So, I thought we would just pass and leave this poor beauty behind when Nate suggested that maybe we might paint it. YES! So we (ahem…Nate) negotiated the price down to $150 and we were on our way home with the new dresser.

I only took a few pictures of what the dresser looked like before because I was so excited about its impending paint job. Here, you can kind of see the finish. Although, this doesn’t really show how bad it was. Before anyone gets too mad at me for painting this beautiful dresser, please know that if I thought I could have saved the finish, I would have. I am a big fan of keeping furniture in its original state and love wood tones and use them often throughout our home.

The only step I had to take to ready this dresser for paint was a good coating of liquid deglosser after I filled in all of the cracks, holes, and divots with wood filler. I chose Kendall Charcoal by Benjamin Moore for the paint color, a moody, dark gray that doesn’t have purple or blue undertones, which can be tricky to find with charcoals. Also, I removed the hardware and covered up the chipped and worn finish with a fresh coat of oil rubbed bronze spray paint. It looked brand new when I was finished.

We have been talking about finally getting our TV mounted on the wall and this seemed like a good time to make that happen. Nate tracked down mounting brackets and a kit that enables you to run the wires through the wall instead of allowing them to show/hang underneath the TV. Here is a shot of this process midway through.

A few weeks ago, our living room looked like this. We had been sporting a flimsy IKEA shelf for the past five years that was AWFUL. This horrible shelf had been moved to too many houses, painted countless colors, and its legs were falling off. It was a mess.

Now, this is how the living room looks today after we finished painting the new (new to us) dresser and mounted the TV on the wall.

So, that is our story about how an old dresser came home with us to live happily ever after. Did I mention the storage we gained??? Just look at all those glorious drawers. Now, I can store movies, books and toys out of sight!

My parents are arriving on Tuesday for two weeks and we are beyond excited! I have been having a lot of fun working away on the guest room to get it ready for them. I will be back next week with the details on some much needed tweaks in that space!