6 Ways to Salvage a Living Room if Your Furniture Doesn't Go Together
As these interior designers prove, opposites *can* attract.
Oct 6, 2019
Before and After: This Studio Refresh Saved One Renter Lots of Cash
When Eric Skyta first toured his San Francisco studio, he saw a messy, outdated space filled with peeling linoleum floors and peeling paint. But he says he saw something else, too: potential.
Oct 5, 2019
6 Reasons to Add a Colorful Couch to Your Living Room
We're taking you through the rainbow with six delightful sofas.
Oct 5, 2019
Before and After: A Plain Living Room Gets Lots More Color and Charm
After a year of living with their new build's plain white living room, Olivia and her boyfriend Tom were ready to fill their space with color and personality.
Oct 5, 2019
Stars Hollow Fans, Check Out These 6 Living Rooms Inspired by ‘Gilmore Girls’ Characters
Saturday, October 5 marks 19 (!!) years since we were introduced to the chattiest mother-daughter duo to ever cross our screens.
Oct 5, 2019
Before and After: This Living Room Fireplace Goes Light and Bright
New tile, paint, and lighting help this fireplace say, "hi, fall!"
Oct 4, 2019
Before and After: A Standard School Bus Gets a Stylish New Life as a Tiny Home on Wheels
When Brooke Cook came across a school bus converted into a tiny home on Instagram, she was smitten. Almost immediately, she and her husband started searching for a potential bus they could turn into a tiny house of their own.
Sep 25, 2019
One Couple Turned Their Chicago Living Room Into a Multi-Functional Marvel
Why have a room serve only one purpose when it can have a few?
Sep 22, 2019
21 Smart Ways to Keep Your Living Room Clean, Forever
Here are some creative and attractive ways to set up your living room so it looks clean just about all the time.
Sep 22, 2019
10 Floor Seating Options for When You Just Don’t Have Room for One More Chair
Finally, there's room for everyone!
Sep 20, 2019
5 Living Room Decor Items You Can Pick Up at Anthropologie For Under $100
We’re rounded up our favorite under $100 picks across Anthropologie's offerings to incorporate some boho vibes into your home—without breaking the bank.
Sep 20, 2019
Take Notes: This 1930s Tudor-Style Home Has the Coziest Living Room
The house needed a lot of work when Brooke and her family moved in, but she fell in love with all the historic character!
Sep 17, 2019
Before and After: A Couple Gave Their SoCal Fixer-Upper a Light-Filled New Look
When Andrea Jensen and her husband were house hunting, they narrowed in on a Southern California area they loved. However, "the neighborhood came with a steep price tag," Andrea writes, "so we knew whatever we bought in our price range would require a lot of work."
Sep 15, 2019
Before and After: This Wasted Space Got a Super Functional Makeover (and a Herringbone Feature Wall)
Allison Schaeffer and her husband Noel had a large loft space at the top of their stairs that wasn't serving much purpose—but had serious potential.
Sep 14, 2019
Before and After: How to Style a Trendy (and Practical!) Coffee Table With Just $32
Yes, it's totally possible!
Sep 10, 2019
Before and After: An Uninspired Sitting Room Gets Some Neon Personality
When Lucy and her husband bought their UK home four years ago, their sitting room and its Victorian fireplace were every shade of neutral.
Sep 6, 2019
Before and After: A California Cabin Becomes the Sweet Destination It Always Had the Potential to Be
As soon as Hope Mendes and her husband saw their Cobb, California, cabin, they knew it was the place they'd been searching for.
Sep 4, 2019
Before and After: See How Black Paint Made a Traditional Fireplace Wall Pop
Initially, Jessie Ecker only planned to paint her fireplace surround black, but she decided that it looked so good and modern that she would keep going and paint the paneling around it.
Aug 28, 2019
8 Ways to Add More Color to a Kitchen Without Having to Pick Up a Paint Brush
If you're all about color, moving into a home with a neutral or just blah-looking kitchen can be one big shrug emoji.
Aug 26, 2019
Before and After: Check Out This Chic Solution for a Living Room with an Asymmetrical Fireplace
How do you design a living room when it has an uneven fireplace sitting oddly in the corner? Kristyn Jackson was baffled.
Aug 21, 2019
Three Things to Splurge On for Your Living Room, And Two Things You Can Save On
They say that money can't buy you love but sometimes, it can buy some great living room style.
Aug 13, 2019
The Best Living Room Flooring Ideas, According to Interior Designers
From chevron wood to layered rugs, and everything in between, here are seven flooring ideas for your living room.
Aug 10, 2019
Our 35 Best Gray Living Room Ideas of All Time
From dove to charcoal and everything in between, these are the best gray paint colors for your living room.
Aug 5, 2019
5 Golden Rules for Designing a Great Living Room
The living room is the every-room. Here's how you should design such a multifaceted space.
Aug 1, 2019
Before and After: Discovering Your Decor Style After a Breakup
Jenna Schreck is a holistic nutrition consultant and the blogger behind NO WHEY LADY. She currently lives in this bright San Francisco loft with her dog.
Jul 29, 2019
The Practical Reason Chinese Homes Have a Dining Table in the Living Room, According to ‘The Farewell’s’ Production Designer
If your grandmother was suffering from an illness and she didn’t know, but you did — would you tell her? That’s the conflict Awkwafina grapples with in her starring role in Lulu Wang’s feature directorial debut, “The Farewell,” out Friday, July 12.
Jul 12, 2019
Before and After: A Hoboken Condo Finds Happiness After a Reno
This place needed A LOT of updates but after six weeks of chaos, countless Home Depot trips, and tons of sweat equity, this condo now fits the couple's personalities.
Jul 1, 2019
This Instagrammer’s 500-Square-Foot Apartment Has All Kinds of Smart Small Space Ideas
Professional Instagrammer Patrick Janelle's living room is full of smart small space furnishing ideas and inspiration.
Jun 18, 2019
5 Living Room Questions Interior Designers are Sick of Answering
Look, interior designers are professionals and more than happy to answer your questions, but there are a few they really wish we all would stop asking.
Jun 1, 2019
How To Carve Out Office Space In Your Small Living Room
You want the workstation to flow with the rest of the decor of the room, but you also want the area to feel professional enough so you can pull up a chair and get into a business frame of mind.
May 30, 2019
9 Living Room Trends Heating Up This Summer
If there’s one room you should consider refreshing regularly, it would definitely be your living room. Whether you’re Netflix and chilling with your significant other or having a bunch of friends over for wine and cheese, your living room is probably one of the most trafficked places in your home.
May 25, 2019
The 10 Living Room Paint Colors Design Pros Swear By
If picking out a paint color was easy, we’d all do it a lot faster. Instead, we agonize over paint chips and swatches, hoping that we don’t make a mistake. Paint may not cost a ton, especially if you’re DIYing the job. But who wants to waste time putting the wrong color up on their walls? That’s why I went straight to the pros to bring you a handful of go-to, no-fail living room colors. Spoiler alert: There are a lot of white and gray shades in the mix.
May 16, 2019
How To Create a Visual Display on a Low Budget
Being a huge fan of visual display in stores and galleries, I make sure to try and always come up with unique display ideas for my own home. Sometimes I have a secret competition with myself to do things for the lowest price possible — this display was no exception!I saw this post a while back and became enamored by the interesting use of pant hangers. I wanted to create the same look without building a structural platform for the hangers.
May 7, 2019
Before & After: Home Organization Makeover
Good, green design is wonderful, but when you live in a cluttered home, it can feel like you can’t see the forest for the trees. This was the case for my friend, Susan, so she asked for my advice on how to organize her living room. In her modestly sized home, the living room is the big multitasker. In it, she runs her small business of bath and body products, does billing, packages her products, does all her online work, exercises, meditates, and watches television. Whew!
May 7, 2019
Before & After: An Inviting, Kid-Friendly Living Room Update
The makeover of this Brooklyn living room wasn’t just for aesthetic reasons; the homeowners needed more organized, out-of-sight storage, and a space that was kid and cat friendly. They also wanted to incorporate a small piano, and be able to watch TV without the television being the focal point of the room. To do this, they turned to New York design firm Mercer Interior. Check out the results after the jump.
May 5, 2019
Before & After: Victoria’s Cottage Makeover
It’s easy to walk into a rental and see only the bad parts — poor lighting, bad flooring, old paint, etc. Forced to move, Victoria of SF Girl by Bay has made the best out of what initially seemed like a less than ideal new home.
May 5, 2019
Before & After: Corner Fireplace Update
I recently came across this design project that Michelle Morelan, designer and renderer extraordinaire, did for a couple in Toronto.The clients had some general ideas of what they wanted to accomplish with the project, and Michelle created a plan to help them achieve their goals. The major objectives were to expand the space, replace all of the finishes, and to update the corner fireplace.
May 5, 2019
Hide That Remote! 5 Pretty Storage Boxes
Advances in technology are making excessive wires and cables slowly go the way of the buffalo but, the remote? It looks like we may be stuck with that one for a while. So if you can’t beat it, hide it! (Along with those goofy 3D glasses that seem to come along with every new TV.) We’ve rounded up a few options that you won’t mind leaving out based on the average size TV remote (7.5”) though you may want to check them against your own. 1.
May 5, 2019
Before & After: A Rental Gets Color in the Living Room Without Painting
How do you add color to a rental without painting? That was the challenge this client posed to Lisa of Olive Juice Designs. She responded by creating an inviting living room, perfect for entertaining, without pulling out a single paintbrush. From Lisa: A single apartment dweller in San Francisco contacted me to help her with her living room. She admitted that her apartment was lacking in many areas, and she was embarrassed to have friends over.
May 5, 2019
Before & After: An Outdated ’80s Chandelier Turns into a Trendy, Geometric Lamp
Have you ever seen those glass and brass, ’80s style light fixtures that often hang in foyers and dining rooms? Not terrible, but slightly outdated. The good news is that you might already have one or you could find a used one for cheap. The even better news is you could turn it into a stylish, geometric lamp that matches pricier contemporary lamps.
May 4, 2019
Before & After: Living Room Goes From Bland to Beachy
Merci bought her San Francisco condo a couple years ago, and has been turning it into her dream home. See how this staged space went from dated to modern: From Merci: I bought this San Francisco beach condo about two years ago and worked over the first year to decorate with minor renovations to make it the home that I’ve dreamt of. Wanted to feature how color can make a difference in changing a home and low cost renovations to home (e.g.
May 4, 2019
Before & After: Maggie Remodels a Dark & Dated Den
Maggie and her husband are in the process of renovating their Pittsburgh home, transforming it room by room from a dark, dated place into a light and bright space that’s a joy to be in. One of their favorite projects-in-progress is this window-filled room, which they has tons of potential… So far they’ve ditched all the wood paneling, raised the roof, and installed drywall.
May 4, 2019
Before & After: From Choppy Layout to Open Plan Living
When Kelly and Dave purchased their home, its layout was in its original, chopped-up form, but what the young family needed was an open plan that would allow views through the living spaces. So when they embarked on extensive renovations, their first plan of action was to get rid of that wall you see in the Before photo above… With the wall gone and two columns in its place, one can see from living room to dining room and kitchen.
May 4, 2019
Before & After: An Apartment Therapy Writer’s Loft Living Room Makeover
I’m super excited to share my very own living room Before & After with you. Once I finished my kitchen makeover earlier this year, things snowballed a bit and I suddenly wanted to change everything. I’ve also lived in my loft for seven years, and the itch is for real—the redecorating itch, that is. That’s a thing, right?
May 4, 2019
9 Beautiful + Inspiring Home Libraries to Haunt Your Pinterest Dreams
What’s even better than going to the library? Having your very own library at home. Here are nine beautiful at-home library spaces, to haunt your Pinterest board and your wildest dreams. Above: a gorgeous library space in a Spanish home from Architectural Digest. Here’s a slightly more modest but no less inspiring space from Domino. A book-lined living room from Casa Vogue. A cozy reading space from Planete Deco.
May 4, 2019
Before & After: Andrea’s Blank Slate Living Room
Name: Andrea Location: Boston, Massachusetts Room: Living Room Size: about 150 square feet Own or Rent: Own We’re on a road trip across the United States to tell people about Complete + Happy Home, and while we’re at it, we’re saving the country, one room at a time! First up, Boston—where we meet Andrea, her cat Sterling, and a blank slate living room that needs help going beyond the basics.
May 4, 2019
Before & After: Jessica & Christian’s California Bohemian Family Space
Name: Jessica & Christian, and their two children Location: Atlanta, GA Room: Living Room Size: about 220 square feet Own or Rent: Rent We went on a road trip across the United States to tell people about Complete + Happy Home, and while we’re at it, we’re saving the country, one room at a time!
May 4, 2019
Before & After: Corinna & Eugenia’s Playful Living Room
Name: Corinna and Eugenia Location: LA Room: Living Room Size: about 200 square feet Own or Rent: Rent We’re on a road trip across the United States to tell people about Complete + Happy Home, and while we’re at it, we’re saving the country, one room at a time! Our last makeover was in Los Angeles—where we meet Corinna and Eugenia, a couple of artists who could use our help blending their creative styles into one playful living room.
May 4, 2019
After & Before: A Donald Trump Meets Jumanji Living Room Makeunder
Sometimes the “before” photo is more jaw-dropping than the finished project, and this is one of those times. Round of applause for Lotta, who was able to see the clean, modern potential in this living room —especially given what she had to work with. From Lotta: This beautiful modern home, designed and built in 1987 by architect Jon Condoret, needed to be brought back to modern again.
May 3, 2019
6 Very Convincing Reasons You Might Want to Get a Projector (Instead of a TV)
If you’re thinking of upgrading your media station, your instinct might tell you to spend your money on a nice new flat screen TV. But if you’re shopping on a budget, or want a more creative solution for your movie-night needs, consider foregoing a television altogether to get a projector instead. Projectors come with a host of surprising benefits, and though you might assume a projector would feel a bit too outdated for your entertainment needs, don’t worry.
May 3, 2019
Before and After: An 1860s New Orleans Double Parlor Is Brought Back to Life
When Tim purchased his house in 2010, it had been abandoned since 2004, a year before Hurricane Katrina. The windows were left open and the walls were covered with mold. The property was what Tim describes as “marginally livable,” and didn’t even meet the requirements for financing. He would have to pay out of pocket to get a hot water heater installed, the electricity turned on, and have the mold re-mediated in order to secure a mortgage.
May 3, 2019
Throwback TV Quiz: How Many Sitcom Living Rooms Can You Recognize?
For as long as they’ve been transmitted through your television, family TV sitcoms have revolved around the living room. A look back at those memorable sets reveals a time capsule of interior design. For instance, One glance at Full House’s light blue gingham sofa brings back a wave of late ’80s/early ’90s nostalgia (hold the stirrup pants, please!).
May 3, 2019
Before & After: Small, Budget-Friendly Changes Transform a Boring Living Room
Every New Yorker dreams of living in a beautiful pre-war building with beautiful pre-war details, but sometimes the reality is less exciting. Hari and Kaity loved a lot of things about their one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn, but the living room was a bit, well, dull. So they set about making a few changes — small, budget-friendly upgrades that nevertheless made a big difference.
May 3, 2019
Before and After: A Craftsman Reinvigorated by a Thoughtful Remodel
Interior designer and stylist Brett and her husband Brandon bought a 1900s Craftsman house in Oakland, California in March of last year, but they couldn’t move in right away. The architectural charm was immediately obvious, but it also needed a lot of work. A renovation was definitely in the cards.
May 3, 2019
Make It Beautiful: How To Style the Perfect Coffee Table
Styling in home decor is – honestly – very subjective. What works for one person’s design aesthetic and lifestyle may not come even remotely close to what someone else might prefer. However, study a slew of shelter magazines, Instagram accounts and top-pinned images (some you’ve likely saved yourself), and you’ll start to see some similarities, which begin to unlock the secrets to fool-proof styling, no matter what the individual aesthetic.
May 3, 2019
Before & After: Living Room Goes from Bland to Glam
Spoilers for “Best Room Wins.”While we’ve been in a golden age of TV for awhile now, but only in the past few seasons have we seen more variety in new home and design programming. If you want something besides another flipper taking over their hometown or another pair of questionably employed folks complaining about paint colors, there are actually other options out there.
May 3, 2019
7 Challenges to Kick Start a Happier Healthier You for Fall
Being more mindful of your health doesn’t necessarily mean overhauling your entire diet or hitting the gym for an hour every day—there are a lot of little things you can do to help you feel like your happiest, healthiest self. Things like staying hydrated, getting in extra steps, trying new things and taking breaks are all important, and it all starts with challenging yourself to pay attention to them.
May 3, 2019
Before & After: Finding Space for a Third Bedroom, Beautifully
Buying an apartment in New York often involves a level of compromise. When Deeksha and Joe moved from D.C. to New York, along with their three-month-old son, their dream was to find a three-bedroom apartment. Reality was a spacious apartment in Washington Heights, with gorgeous views of the river — and only two bedrooms. But in the apartment’s L-shaped living room, they saw an opportunity.
May 3, 2019
Before and After: The Secret to Taking Wood-Paneled Walls Down a Notch
Warm, earthy wood is such a beautiful material to have in your home…until it’s not. There are no rules about how much wood a home can handle, but you know it when you see it. When Carina Romano bought this cabin in the Catskills with two friends, Amanda Jaffe and Kate McCann, the location won them over, but the amount of ’80s-era wood-paneled walls was overwhelming.
May 3, 2019
This Weekend, Get A Brand New Living Room for Zero Dollars
As much as we love our homes, sometimes even rooms that are “done” can feel a little tired. Or maybe we’re feeling in a bit of a slump and could use the pick-me-up that an updated space could provide. As much as we wish we could plunk down the cash for that couch that’s been on our wish list or finally switch out the wall-to-wall carpet for hardwoods, there are room fixes that aren’t just budget friendly, but entirely free.
May 3, 2019
Before and After: A Pretty Jaw-Dropping Living Room Redo
This is a very nice living room! If it has a flaw, it’s that it is all a bit…beige, with endless shades of taupe and brown. Check out the renovation that makes the room’s many assets pop — and makes you forget there was ever any beige involved. It’s now so fantastic!
May 3, 2019
Before and After: This Is No Longer ‘The Ugliest House I’ve Ever Seen’
It would be fascinating to meet the person who decided to decorate this living room—in what its new owner described as “the ugliest house I’ve ever seen”—with bright green walls and all red furnishings, but we’ll have to be content with seeing how this Christmas-y space was transformed into a bright, modern, and colorful—but not quite as colorful—room.
May 3, 2019
Before and After: This Living Room Gets Upgraded with Pattern and Color
Gorgeous hardwood floors, a large window, posh location, a fireplace, and built-ins galore? Yes, please. This Upper East Side apartment’s living room was already dreamy as hell, but one bold client-designer team knew it could be so much more. My favorite part of this transformation is the way the newly painted built-ins echo the tone of the fireplace, creating, along with the mirror, a delightful triptych. The coffee table appears to be the same hue, further unifying the space.
May 3, 2019
The Weird Story of How Recliners Became a Staple in American Living Rooms
Growing up, it never really felt like an official family party until my dad and uncle retired to the twin tan recliners in my grandparents’ living room after dinner, while my grandpa settled into his own rusty orange recliner on the opposite side of the room. Within minutes of sitting down and kicking up their feet, all three would be sound asleep. How they could sleep through the sounds of six shrieking children pretending to be wolves, I’ll never know. It must have been the chairs.
May 3, 2019
These Living Room Buys Look Fancy—But They’re All from Amazon
Recently, we teamed up with Amazon to bring you some first apartment essentials. When you have to start from almost nothing, it’s hard not to look towards budget. But rather than going generic, we found useful, design-forward buys that are also budget-conscious. Of course, you don’t need to be moving, or even in your first apartment, to want some of these affordable buys. Here are some of our favorites perfect for your living room, or anywhere you might want to hang out.
May 3, 2019
21 Ways to Declutter Your Brain with Just Pen and Paper
One of the biggest reasons writing is so powerful is that it removes the swirling thoughts from our heads and puts them into a space where they’re far from lost. From the insights and resolutions that come from journaling to the highly practical peace of mind that comes from jotting down that new appointment on our calendars so we don’t have to not forget it, once pen is put to paper, something magical happens.
May 3, 2019
Author Kelsey Miller On Her Home Office Splurge and What She Learned While Writing a Book about ‘Friends’
Kelsey Miller never expected to have room for a home office in New York City—at least until she was “rich and famous.” However, she and her husband lucked out on the apartment front, and now she has a small writer’s retreat all to herself. The author of the forthcoming book “I’ll Be There For You” takes us on a mini tour of her workspace, and shares what it’s really like writing a book about everyone’s favorite TV show, “Friends.
May 3, 2019
This ‘Harry Potter’ Sorting Hat Candle Will Reveal Your Hogwarts House
As the weather cools down, more candles start to light up. There’s nothing quite like your favorite candle flickering on an evening when all you want to do is crawl under your favorite blanket and cozy up to your TV for the evening. For those binge-watching Harry Potter movies any night that you get to do so, do we have the candle to lift your spirits as if Wingardium Leviosa was casted upon you.
May 3, 2019
Before & After: This Widower’s Living Space Gets a Fresh Start
This living room project ends in a fresh start—something we could all use at some point in our life. Here is a little backstory on this project from the designer who helped a man in mourning start anew: During our first consultation, the house was in extreme disrepair. My client, a recent widower, was left to clean up the pieces of his wife who was an extreme “collector.
May 3, 2019
Before and After: An Outdated Condo’s Budget Boho Remodel
Hannah Wilson and her husband own a home remodeling/design company called Blank Slate Renovations, and the home they currently live in is a 1,300-square-foot condo in Dallas, Texas. They had to remodel the whole space and they had to stick to a pretty low budget. Now finished, it’s got a minimal/modern/organic/Scandi/boho style.
May 3, 2019
Before and After: This Living Room is All About the New Ceiling
This open-plan living and dining room had tons of charm: A graceful chandelier, attractive and comfortable furniture, lush plants, and lots of natural light. Its owner, however, wanted to added a little something extra—that je ne sais quoi that would elevate the space. Reader Kari Hailey looked for ways to add architectural interest and warmth to the room, and finally found something they could do themselves, without spending a ton of money. Kari cleverly added beams!
May 3, 2019