I don’t know about you, but I love looking at Pinterest (Follow our boards here) just to see how other people decorate their living rooms, bedrooms and kitchens and with that, we’re bringing you {drum roll please} House Crashers…Austin Edition! Enjoy an inside look of our living rooms and some DIY projects that made them complete.
Vanessa:
We live in a quaint older neighborhood. Our 1950s ranch has charming builtins (and oh-so-annoying window units ((changing that is coming soon)) and had a lot of potential for rustic-style living. The first project we tackled was a DIY Media Center. We found the inspiration here and headed straight to Home Depot. About five (5) hours and $50 bucks later we had this DIY Media Center. Decorating the center has been a work on progress, but 90% of the decor was previously owned. {The random gentleman in the photos is a friend of family and Matt’s handy helper, Albert.}
The next thing we did was make sure Caroline had a designated play area. Our little artist only needs a few things to keep her happy, so we pulled some of her toys and threw this in this big yellow bucket (repurposed drink holder from her first birthday) and hid them away in the built-in shelves. We also placed her easel behind the sofa so it’s out of eyesight when you walk in the house. As she gets older she is becoming a bit more disciplined about putting them back where they belong, but 8…let’s be real…5 times out of 10, I step on something. Moving on to some random happiness that I have around the living room. I read YHL on a daily basis and felt a little inspired by some of the random things that they do around their house and thought I’d do the same. I took an old wreath, an old frame, a piece of some art we had made two years ago and a mason jar sconce that I made a while back and pieces from our friends’ fence (the white wood and the knocker looking things) and added them to the corner. I felt pretty handy at the end of it all and like the way it looks planned, but wasn’t. Also YHL inspired are the birdcages that hang to the left of the media center. I needed intant gratification so I hung them with white string versus clear wire, but eventually you won’t be able to see the string. I got two of them at Michael’s for 50% and one for 40% (dang it…should have known I needed three to begin with!)
All-in-all, I’m pretty happy with the way our living room has turned out. Obviously things continue to be a work in progress, but I feel comfortable coming home, opening up a bottle of vino and sitting down with my feet up in this little rustic haven.
Allison:
I’m a bit obsessed with PotteryBarn and there is definitely no shortage of their store in my home. All of the pillows are from PB Summer 2013. They’re a little colorful, a little funky, and almost a little tribal…I love them though! Don’t hate me, but my husband loves to hunt so these ram skulls are his. I think one won some award or something…whatever, he’s proud! I’m not a traditional rug lover so for us our brindle cow hide is perfect! It adds depth and texture without overwhelming our living room floor. My coffee table is from PotteryBarn Benchwright Collection and its a very rustic look, which is perfect because it turns into Lincoln’s play table so I’m glad we don’t have something that he could destroy…anything he does to this piece is just adding additional character!
Are you beginning to feel like we have a lot of dead animals in our house? Honestly, this is only one Axis head and we ate him for a year…can’t get much more organic than that! The rest of the horns are sheds (meaning no animal was harmed in their recovery). I love this vase! I got it from Marshall’s a number of years ago and added the twine to it so it wasn’t quite so…purple. I feel like this section is a mini shrine to my husband and I, which seems weird now that I look at it in pics. Regardless, it’s our engagement picture in front of the Capitol, a replica of my wedding bouquet in one of my fancy DIY mason jars, a DIY twine wrapped letter, and pics and such. I got this Tuscan style vase from Pier One. I went there hoping for a deal…their stuff isn’t necessarily always a bargain though.
We have this super large wall in our living room and for the longest time it was bare while I figured out what to put here. I really wanted antique cathedral style doors, but all the ones I found were $2,000 “ish”. I decided on these much more affordable DIY fabric wrapped boards (tutorial to come). They’re huge, and I mean HUGE (see photo) add color to our room without overpowering our space, and cost me a total of $100. Until I get my doors, this is what will hang here. A living room wouldn’t be complete without kids crap! Here’s Townsend’s little play space. This red distressed piece is again, from Pottery Barn…it holds all of our media stuff. The urn I got from Rexine at Willow House (Have you checked out her website? She’s an Austin Mama and proud AMB follower) and the twig things are from PB. And of course pics of our little family of 3! Three months in and I still haven’t developed any pics of Townsend to complete our family of 4…I’ll get on that eventually.
Our living room is our most-used room in the house and we love it! Also, don’t forget to take our reader survey to help us make sure they blog is more relevant to you!
