Welcome to part 2 of my “home decorating journey” posts. The living room is where we spend most of our time, and where we usually hang out when we have people over, so it was really important to me that it both looked nice and was functional for our needs.
The big pieces
The two biggest pieces in a living room are probably the sofa and the TV situation. We had sold our couch before moving to California so I needed to look for a new one as soon as we got here. We love to lounge so I didn’t want to be without one for long. The funny thing is that our old couch ended up selling way quicker than I expected (I can thank the 2021 supply chain issues for that) and we found ourselves couchless two weeks before our move and had to quickly acquire a papasan chair to use as a stand-in.
One thing I had determined was that I did not want a sleeper sofa or anything else heavy, because getting our old couch out of our apartment almost killed us (the sleeper mattress started to fall out and pin me against the door, Axel was super sweaty). And of course it needed to be fit a tight budget. I scoured Offerup and Facebook marketplace and narrowed it down to two possibilities: the Article Sven couch and the Joybird Lewis Sectional. Both loosely midcentury modern-inspired, both popular direct-to-consumer brands. While I liked the Sven a lot, it was a little pricy and the seller had some negative reviews. Once I saw that the Joybird seller would deliver for $80 extra, I was sold. We paid $1500 for the sofa, which was an open box model. Considering that retail price was around $3000 and the couch was basically brand-new, this seemed like a great deal.
On to my thoughts about the Lewis sectional: firstly, it is very lightweight. It comes in two pieces that are connected via some interlocking metal pieces. Each piece can easily be lifted by two people (even if one of them is a weakling like me). The couch is also very deep and the chaise longue part is extra wide. This makes the couch extremely comfortable, even to sleep on (many a night has ended with Axel and I waking up on this couch at 2 am after drifting off while watching Netflix). It easily seats 4 people and has thick, fluffy cushions. The downsides of this sofa are that the base cushions slide out constantly, meaning that I am always having to shove them back into place. The back of the sofa is pretty low so it doesn’t lend as much back support as other sofas. One of the throw pillows that came with it ripped fairly early on.. Later, the cover of the chaise longue also ripped all along the zipper, which had to be fixed by a tailor. Other than those couple things, I really like this couch.
We went for the Merit Dove color, which is a light speckled gray. Stains don’t really show much, although it has stained pretty badly when I’ve spilled water on it, which is strange. Fortunately, I’ve found that the cushion covers are all machine-washable, although they don’t advise this. The fabric has held up fairly well to Moomin relentlessly using it as a scratcher (she loves the nubby texture). Overall, I see us keeping this sofa for a long time and I think it is a great, mid-range option that is both stylish and functional.
Oops this accidentally turned into a Joybird review post! Moving on to the other large piece- the TV stand. This stand was, the Fjällbo an affordable find from Ikea. It’s designed so that you can put your receivers and whatnot down below and remotes will still work because the fronts of the cabinet are made of mesh. After buying this, however, I realized that I have no need for this because we only use the apps that are built into our TV and I didn’t like how messy it looked inside. So I found this peel and stick wallpaper in a peachy pink color on Amazon and cut it to the size of the panels and stuck it on, effectively hiding whatever is going on inside.
The minor (but still important) characters
Our coffee table and side table were also FB marketplace finds. I honestly have no idea who they’re made by or what era they’re from, as I’ve never seen any other pieces like them. They’re solid wood and very sturdy. These are definitely part of our “forever furniture” collection.
The rug is originally from Anthropologie. It’s 8×5, which I’m now realizing might be a little small for the space, but I really like it so I don’t want to replace it with something bigger any time soon. Navy blue isn’t on the color palette, but I feel that it acts as a neutral here. It’s pretty thick and comfortable to walk on too.
Again, no idea what the original brand of this lamp is, but I love that it’s dimmable and is so tall that it draws the eye up. I feel like finding a good floor lamp is actually pretty difficult, and I am happy we’ found this one.
The little details
The little embroidery art you see on the wall between the door to the sunroom and the internal window (the sunroom is formerly a porch that was fully enclosed at some point) was a cute find from the Topanga flea market. We have two large embroidery art pieces so when I saw the small one, I felt like I needed to acquire it too! The pillows are 20×20 feather inserts from Ikea (a great place to get pillows) with covers from Amazon (not my favorite, have now been replaced by these pillowcases from PB Teen). The blanket is a wool number from Etsy. Unfortunately, I have really sensitive skin so I can’t actually use the blanket (so it’s relegated to Axel) but I just love the way it looks.
And that is the story of everything in my living room! We’ve had a lot of these items for years now and it’s been great to see how they fit in at each different place we’ve lived. The living room is the first room you see when you walk in and the room we probably spend the most time in at home, so I wanted to make sure that it was both functional and consistent with the vibe I’m trying to curate in my home.
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