The living room, reception room, front room, what ever you call it is where families spend most of their time relaxing, enjoying eachothers company and sitting down to watch the TV or a movie. Check out the eMoov Home Staging page for inspiration and tips on make the most of your living room.
All you need to do is write a post and include photos about your living room, it can be a 'before and after' type post if you've recently decorated or if you have an amazing living space then just a set of current photos!
The winner will receive, you guessed it from the name, an iPad mini! Competition closes on 31st July 2013.
The post is pretty long so click READ MORE to see all my lovely photos :D
My Country Inspired Living Room in South London!
I love my living room, it really is the hub of out home. We're very fortunate to have two reception rooms in our home, the other one being a dining room with large glass doors overlooking the back garden. But this one is our favourite. We congregate here in the evenings to watch TV, it's perfect and cosy during the winter and it's a great environment to play host to family and friends!
My mum is absolutely bonkers about Kirstie Allsopp so there's no surprise that at least one of the rooms in our house would scream Vintage and Chic! She loves upcycling home items and that shows throughout the living room.
Sadly I don't have the photos of our living room when we moved in, I honestly couldn't even describe the condition it was in. Those who saw it were disgusted that the former owners of the home lived with it in such a bad condition. The wall paper was discoloured and dated, the colour was cover in a stain-ridden carpet, the whole house in fact looked like it was lived in by the worst kind of homeless people. Myself and my mum have spent almost 2 years now redecorating the whole house, giving the whole house a clean canvas and starting over.
The wall shown in the two photos above were orginally covered in horrible tongue and groove panelling straight across the wall, from ceiling to floor. It was a deep brown colour and was depressing to look at let alone sit in the room with. We removed all of it, plastered the wall to a smooth canvas and painted the chimney breast this lovely Laurel/Moss Green!
I didn't get a very clear photo of the flooring. My mum spent days refurbishing just the flooring in the living room from unfinished solid wood. The wood flooring goes throughout the ground floor of our home and is now all matching. It was first sanded from the dirt and dust then had two coats of stain/varnish.
My mum is a serious bargain hunter. When we moved into our home sadly our sofas couldn't fit through the door due to being so bulky so we had no sofas from October-January. After the Christmas money-splurge was over she found these two leather sofas from separate buyers on eBay and Gumtree. The one under the window just £8.00 and the other one just 99p! I was in shock too!
The solid pine TV unit was just £12.00 from eBay and the solid unfinished pine coffee table was given by my aunt before we moved and luckily fits the living room perfectly.
The solid pine book shelf is important to us as we love to cook and craft, this lovely cabinet holds almost all of our cook books as our kitchen is small and doesn't have enough storage for food let alone our beloved cook books!
The rocking horse, vases and vintage crystal bottles were all donated by our neighbours who love to hoard vintage and quirky pieces! The lamp was originally a faded painted design, my mum upcycled this battered lamp into a lovely clean white lamp.
The mirror was a vintage piece from a charity shop, originally unfinished wood, I painted it and sanded down some parts to give it a chic distressed look.
The curtains were also found on eBay at a bargain price of £25.00, originally worth well over £100!
The sheer viole cutrains were handmade by my mum, who is a curtain and blind fitter and cleaner for a local company.
The wall hangings above the sofa against the wall were all gifts. I personally love the rose wall hooks. The vintage photo frame has two lovely photos of myself and my sister as children together and the middle one is my mums other baby, Milly our yorkshire terrier!
This is my favourite feature in out living and boy, is it a big one! The solid pine dresser top. We simply took the top half of the dresser top which belonged to my aunt as she didn't like it. We then cleaned it up and mounted it safely on the wall. A lovely feature piece, don't you think?
It holds my mums collection of china; a vast collection of teapots, cups and saucers that have all been handed down through the years by relatives.
I love the vintage clock, I think it's from Wilkinsons or another high street homeware store!
The vintage childs double handle cup was handed down from my mums grandmother who used this to feed milk and juice to my grandmother. A very priceless but sentimental piece!
What do we all think to my mums hard work in the living room? I think she should have a pop at interior design :p
