Evolution of Our Living Room and New Bench Pillows

I’ve discovered a perk of not moving every two or three years. If you stay put long enough, you’ll have the time and inclination (the itch, really) to redecorate your home.

As it turns out, redecorating is cheaper and easier than moving. I’m not ready to say it’s more fun because I actually enjoy moving.

However, redecorating is pretty darn enjoyable too.

You’re going to get hung up on the fact that I enjoy moving, aren’t you? Let me explain.

It’s not the physical act of moving homes that I enjoy. It’s the adventure and newness of moving that really flips my switch. And let’s not forget how liberating it is to purge while packing.

Now that we got that out of our systems, let’s focus on the evolution of our living room.

When you move to a new home, you usually bring your old furnishings. Sometimes they work in the new space, sometimes they don’t. Figuring that out is part of the process and, in my case, the process takes time.

Here’s the living room on the day we moved in. The seller left many, many items behind.

Looking back, I can see my priority was on switching out the fabric on the bench cushions from striped to navy blue velvet before I painted the room.

You must follow the decorating muse where she leads you.

In my case, it was a good thing I DID prioritize the bench cushions because imagine my surprise when I lifted them and found books hiding underneath!

There were old issues of Cosmopolitan from the early 1900s. There was also a seed catalog from the late 1800s. Finally, I found a set of X-rays. That was a first.

I painted over the stencil on the wall and, while I’m not morally opposed to a yellow fireplace, it received a fresh coat of paint too. I needed to cleanse the palate so to speak and return this home to a blank slate so that I could infuse my style.

As you can see, I also procured vintage Ethan Allen chairs on Facebook Marketplace. They were rarely used because they sat in a very nice lady’s formal living room for thirty years. God bless formal living rooms and the furniture I can score from them.

The other significant change is we switched out the base on the coffee table. 90s brass has never looked so good. By the way, the coffee table top used to be a dining table. This is a mix-and-match creation.

The next significant change came in the form of a new rug.

I enjoyed the bright, happy style of the old rug, but was ready for something with warmer tones that looked a bit more subtle and refined.

Pop quiz.

Do you remember the first thing I changed in this living room?

If your answer was the bench cushions then you earn a gold star. Good job!

We’ve come full circle and now it’s time to change out the bench cushions again. I blame that redecorating itch that seems to hit when you’ve lived in one place longer than a few years.

I went wild and not only did I select a patterned fabric this time for the bench cushions but I added pillows too!

Okay, my fabric patterns don’t even register on the wild scale. It’s more like I dipped my toe into the water. Give me another four years and I might dive fully into the patterned fabric pool.

Stranger things have happened, like finding X-rays under your cushions.

The wild part, for me, is that I added eight new pillows to the mix. Eight. Four years ago I had zero throw pillows. Now I have ten.

It is not lost on me that I have thrown plenty of shade at throw pillows in past years. I appreciate the look of throw pillows. I just wish someone would invent pillows that straighten themselves so that I don’t have to constantly do it.

That’s not too much to ask, is it?

The interesting thing about the evolution of our living room over the past four and a half years is that I enjoyed and felt content in every decorating phase of this space.

I don’t look back at old pictures and cringe because I know I was able to appreciate the decorating for what it was and how it served our family in the moment. Then when I got the itch to do something different, I appreciated that too.

How do you feel about redecorating? Does the desire to do so ever go away? I’d love to know. You can always comment on this blog post, email us here, or reach out via Instagram or Facebook.

Happy decorating!

Here are the details about our living room.

Wall Color – Behr Arcade White

Trim Color – Behr Bit Of Sugar

Bench Cushion Fabric – Joann’s upholstery section (can’t find a link for it)

Bench Lumbar Pillows – Blue With Tan Check

Rivet Leather Sofa (similar)

Blue Sahavieh Rug

Loloi x Chris Loves Julia Rug – Jules Terracotta Multi

*affiliate links in this blog post*

Thanks for being here today! I enjoy sharing decorating ideas and my home with you. Here are some other blog posts you might enjoy.

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