Fresh Start

Maybe it's the start of the new year, but something is prompting me to look at my home with fresh -- and critical -- eyes. It seems like everywhere I turn there's a new project I want to take on right away. However, I know I should take one thing at a time, so I'm beginning with our living room. I love the gray and white sofas in these rooms featured on Ideal Home, particularly how they coexist nicely with black as well as vivid colors. Hmmm, it seems I've found myself a starting point!

Photos from here.

Gray Areas

It's been a wonderful, long holiday weekend. I got to spend time with family, do a little shopping with my mom and relax at home with my husband and our dog. We had a perfect Friday night listening to holiday music and putting up our Christmas tree.

We made a few tweaks to our living room, too, replacing bright paintings with two prints from our London trip and bringing out a white faux fur pillow and cream afghan my grandma knitted. I also swapped out the yellow covers of our big floor pillows for fuzzier, more wintry ones. And I'm contemplating ordering a gray cover for our blue sofa, which is looking a little faded nowadays.

I'm hoping for a cozy, sophisticated feel, and these gray and white living rooms, featured on Living Etc., are providing pretty inspiration.

Photos from here.

Made for Living

While all the spaces in our home matter to me, our living room is a special place. I want it to be comfortable as well as stylish, a place we crave and look forward to spending time in.

As I was perusing galleries on My Home Ideas, I found these living rooms particularly inspiring. Take a look:

Colorful, patterned accessories meld together nicely in this white room.

It's almost impossible to tell where the indoors ends and the outdoors begins.

Could anyone ever be crabby in a room this sunny?

Neutral tones look sumptuous thanks to lots of different textures.

I wish more rooms were this vivacious!

Photos from here.

Get it Together

There's something so put together about this living room. The graphic black and white stripes add neatness and punch to a pale room. Somehow, it seems the perfect inspiration to get things together on a Monday morning.

Photo from here.

Love Seat

I lamented awhile back about the lack of a cozy corner in our living room and how I was hoping we'd get a chaise to remedy the situation. Well, my husband had the very thoughtful idea of buying such a chair as a Valentine's Day gift to each other. So we poppoed over to Ikea and got a gray Karlstad chaise.

I love it! I already broke it in this morning, lounging in the bright morning sun with a latte and a magazine. And my husband took a turn with it this afternoon doing work on his laptop. And our pup seems to have claimed it as her new observation spot.

Oh, and my husband surprised me white tulips, one of my favorite flowers. All in all, it's been a great, cozy, love-filled weekend.

Photos by me.

Easy Living

I was poking aroung the House Beautiful website when I saw a link to an outdoor living room slideshow. Uh, yes please!

HB calls these outdoor spaces the "New American Living Room" and I couldn't agree more.

It's summer. Let's unplug, step away from the electronics and do some good old fashioned hanging out. And let's do it outside!





Photos from here.