This Maximalist Living Room Makeover Is “Lava Lamp Chic”
When first-time homebuyer Anna Ladd (@liveladdlove) purchased her South Philly townhouse, she definitely wanted to personalize it. “Everything is for me, because I like it, and I do not understand the point of buying a house if I’m going to live like the next buyer is my landlord,” she says, and her style leans toward “lava lamp chic.”
She transformed her living room from a blank white box into a space with bold colors and organic shapes and wavy lines. “I’ve been going room by room since moving here in 2022, starting with the living room,” she says.
The mural was a DIY project.
She knew she wanted a mural on the wall behind the TV, but the only thing she had really locked in was her light pink paint to complement some of the colorful furniture she had bought. She selected Sherwin-Williams’ Quaint Peche for the project. “Everything else was kind of improvised,” Anna says. “I got all the paint without knowing exactly what I would do with it yet.”
She ended up extending the mural all the way around the room — except for one solid red-pink (HGTV Home by Sherwin-Williams’ Flirty Fuschia) wall behind the blue sofa.
Picking the furniture was the first step.
Speaking of the blue sofa, it was one of the first things Anna purchased for her living room (and her home). “I really wanted a living room I would actually use instead of defaulting to lying down at all times,” she says. “I made a scale model of the room in [Adobe] Illustrator and moved little furniture blobs around to see what fit best.”
The TV stand and coffee table are from Wayfair, and the faux cowhide, spiral end table, and green plant stand are from Amazon.
Anna also hand-tufted the smaller squiggly rugs in the space, and a lot of the decor is thrifted.
There’s a “column of columns.”
Some of her favorite thrift shop finds? Her beloved columns. “I know a column at the Whitman Plaza Goodwill absolutely hates to see me coming,” she says. (And she salvaged one from an old church.)
“I just added to these rooms piece by piece,” she says of her home. “A lot of the steps were like: realizing I should have curtains. Waking up and deciding the wall should be pink. Lying down and wishing there was one more pillow. Seeing an area that felt empty and hitting the Goodwill to look for a photo or knickknack to put there. And then stopping when it felt done!”
Anna says she spends most of her time at home in this room. “I think it’s because it makes me happy to look at it,” she says.
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