Hello Pink Living Room!

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that my old house was all about the blues.  If you had told me that my next house would have a pink front door and back door, as well as a pink living room, I would have laughed in your face.  “NO WAY, Jose!  I am not a pink person!” Well, when we moved into this house, something became very clear to me… my old house colors weren’t feeling right in this space.  I am a big believer that a house tells you what it wants, and you just follow along and infuse your style.  Maybe that sounds slightly insane, but it’s how I work. I wait for a space to speak to me before I decide what direction to take it in within my means. This house is cozy and faces the west, so the living room which is in the front of the house doesn’t get much light.  I wanted colors that would be calming, but warm, and mostly neutral.  After living here for a year, it was finally time to paint these walls, and make it our own!  In doing so, it was also time to get rid of the rugs that my dogs had stained when we decided last summer to try out a dog sitter… our anxious dogs didn’t fare so well, and neither did our rugs!  We had already replaced one that was utterly destroyed, but the rugs we had in here were livable, but just not what I wanted people to see first thing when they walked into my home.  Welcome to my home, don’t mind that pee stain.  Yeah… ick!  Thankfully, my friends at Mohawk were amazing and helped me get the perfect neutral layered rugs for this space. Are you ready to check it out? (This post is sponsored by Mohawk and they also provided the rugs for this space.  Thanks to Sherwin Willams for providing the paint for this room as well.)

To refresh your memory, here’s where the room was last fall. Now, full disclosure here, I had holes where the old curtain hardware from the previous owners had been, and huge circles of beige paint because they had painted around the hardware.  I always edited those circles out of my photos.  Now that we’ve painted, I don’t have to worry about that!

Right behind the sofa, close to the entry, there was a stain on each rug.  YUCK.  Plus, now that I work at home so much more than I did last year, I wanted to have a rug free space under the desk.  Before swapping out the rugs, I always had half of my chair on the rug, and half off.  Now I am even. 🙂

Before I selected the paint for the walls, I selected the rugs.  I knew I wanted this space to feel cozy, and I wanted neutrals that could go with anything.  Because this room has multiple functions, I wanted to use the rugs to help me define the spaces, and I wanted to be practical about it my selections. In addition to creating clear division of space I needed the rugs to function well for our family. We sit on this floor often, playing games or watching movies.  However, this room is also a major pass through for us, so it gets a ton of foot traffic, making durability where we walk frequently a high priority.  Typically, plush rugs tend to hold a little more dirt than flat weave rugs, so combining the two types with layers would offer us the function we needed, as well as the style… I love the coziness of layered rugs!

First I selected the top layer, because let’s be honest… pattern is way more fun! When I saw this new rug from Mohawk (soon to be on their website), I fell in love with its neutral shades in gray, cream, and tan.  It seemed to be the perfect piece, bringing in the colors of our terrazzo countertops, and our dining room mural, creating the perfect flow. Below you can see those colors of the rug reflected in the mural.

This new rug anchors the seating area perfectly, and offers us comfort as we sit around the table playing games.

I selected the 6×10 in the patterned rug, but needed a larger rug to suit the scale of the room.  However, I didn’t want the plush rug any larger, because the perimeter of the room is where we all walk, often with shoes on.  While the plush feels great, I needed something that would withstand all of our shod feet as well as the paws that run back and forth daily. The Montauk by Mohawk in natural is the perfect bottom layer for our living room because it’s durable and neutral.  It’s actually an indoor/outdoor rug which means it will stand up to wear and tear really well. And my family and dogs are pretty good at wear and tear, if I do say so myself.

I absolutely love the texture and vibe it brings to the room.  We opted for the 9×12 so that it would help define the living room space, and separate my “office.” Below you can see that it ends just behind the sectional, and then I’ve got a clear space for my desk and chair.

With the new rugs in place, this room has become so much more functional and comfortable for our family.  I absolutely love that my desk chair is now even as well, no longer half on a rug. Now I just need to do something to manage all of those cords.

These new rugs certainly make working from home much more comfortable for me.

With these gorgeous neutral rugs that complement the rest of our home well, I could really have gone in any direction with wall color.  I contemplated some grays, some gray-greens, some sandy tones, as well as some warm pinks.  I brought home several swatches from my local Sherwin-Willams store, and taped them to the wall and left them there for over a week while I deliberated. To be honest, I knew in my gut what color I wanted, but I was trying to look at other options because something told me the color my gut wanted wasn’t anywhere near the color Chris would prefer.  He leaned towards one of the greiges I had on the wall, and I told him I liked that one as well… which I did.  However, when I finally pulled the trigger on the paint, I just jumped in with the color that was speaking to my heart, the color that I knew would look amazing with the front door and the dining mural nearby.  That color was NOT the greige that Chris preferred… it was a pink, a beautiful warm sandy pink. Here is a little peek from my hallway into the living room.

I fell head over heels for “Malted Milk.” It’s not quite as pink as my front door, and it’s got more of a warm tan undertone to it, which makes it almost a neutral.  Actually, when Emmy came home and saw the paint for the first time, she looked at it wide eyed and dreamily as she said, “it feels just like the desert.”  That’s exactly what I wanted… a warm and natural pink.  As you can see below though, my door is more of a traditional pink in comparison.

Seeing how these spaces come together and flow now makes me so happy!  The new wall color feels just right and creates great cohesion throughout our main living area.

As far as my little office area goes, when I shared it a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I was planning to paint the shelves the same color as the wall. I am so glad I ended up doing that with this Malted Milk paint, because it helps it blend into the room, but also define my work space.  Not to mention, this color makes me insanely happy, and who doesn’t want to feel insanely happy while they work?

The shelves could use a little more styling and pizazz, but that will be coming later.  I plan to get myself some magazine file boxes to hold my contracts, and try to stay more organized this year…. TRY, that is.

On the opposite end of the room from my office space is the TV wall and the entry to the dining room. Here is a peek from the newly painted living room into the dining space, and you can see how it now flows with that pop of pink on our back door.

What you can’t see here, but is on that wall on the right is our dining area mural which features all of the colors of the new rugs as well as a similar pink to malted milk.

While I realize that pink is not a wall color everyone would choose, it is the color that truly spoke to me for this space. And frankly, when it comes to choosing anything for your own home, I tend to fall into the category of thinking that your home is FOR YOU and your family, and for no one else! You do you, and create a space that you love!  Who cares what anyone else says!  They don’t live there.

Although we have made much progress over the last few weeks, we still have some work to do in here.  The TV wall needs some serious love, and then there is the big pink wall that I just don’t know what to do with.  It faces the double window, so it’s one of the first things people see as they approach our home.  It’s a large expanse of empty wall currently.  Since it’s situated between the dining room mural and the patterned entry, I think pattern might be too much.  I’ve got a few thoughts, but nothing I am 100% committed to just yet, so I would love to hear what you think would look good there! Below you can see it on the right.  There is no room for furniture there, and we use it as a walk way so I don’t want to block it.  Drop me a comment below with your suggestion!

We still have some work ahead of us, but now that the walls are painted and the rugs are providing structure to our space, this room is truly feeling like ours! I honestly can’t believe that we lived with those unpainted dingy white walls for as long as we did.  With its new paint and rugs, this room feels so much cozier, warmer, and welcoming! Now tell me, what color is your living room?