A Tour of Our "Coastal Modern Traditional" Living Room Progress
We’ve been making some good progress on the living room at our Richmond home. We’ve lovingly/jokingly dubbed this “the parlor” since we see it as the grown-up, formal space of our two living areas. It’s in the front of the house right by the front door, so the parlor designation seemed to suit it well!
Our other living room is off of our kitchen - it’s a bit more kid-friendly and where we hang out most of the time with our 10 month old. He’s definitely broken things in down there, but the choices we made for that space have held up well so far! I’ll have to share it over here on the blog soon.
I have a hard time nailing down the style of this space, but I’ve landed on a mashup of three (ha!): coastal, modern, and traditional. I think most of us are probably drawn to at least two or three different styles, and that’s a GREAT thing in my opinion. Melding a few different styles is what makes our homes feel unique, layered, and collected, wouldn’t you agree?
This room has been coming along nicely over the past few months - I wouldn’t call it done quite yet. It’s definitely functional, but there are still a few things I’d like to do to make it feel a little more complete. I’ve enjoyed letting the process happen organically over time though as we live here and get to know this new-to-us house.
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Let’s dig into the GOOD parts of what’s going on here so far though, starting with that lovely sofa under the windows. It’s a slipcover sofa with a bench seat (that means one long cushion!), which is a style I’ve wanted to have for so long! It feels streamlined and modern, yet has a coastal feel too. I had it upholstered in an almost-white fabric that has flecks of gray, linen, and beige in it. It looks like a linen, but it’s actually a performance fabric called Crypton.
Some people may think I’m crazy for buying a white sofa with a kid and a dog around, but Crypton is designed to stand up to that - it’s stain-resistant and made to handle life’s messes. Our dog has already logged many hours up there (despite our efforts to keep him off of it!) and I’m happy to say I haven’t seen a mark yet in the four months we’ve had it.
As you can see in the photo below, he feels quite comfortable calling this sofa his own! I don’t blame him since it’s so comfortable. 😉
The Persian-inspired blue rug brings in a great dose of pattern and color. It’s super soft underfoot too, which feels great on bare feet. It’s made of viscose, which gives it a little bit of a sheen. One word of caution about the material if you find you like this rug - it’s not the most durable, so I’d only use it in a lower traffic area. We’re a shoes-off house and this room is used less in general, so I felt ok about putting a viscose rug in here. It’s also VERY affordable, so if it does happen to get ruined somehow, it won’t be the end of the world.
My only regret with this rug is that I wish we could have gone bigger with it. You can’t tell from these photos, but this room sits right next to our dining room (open floor plan style), so I didn’t want the rug to extend too far into that space. Also, there’s a support column that sits right where I’d want one of the corners of the rug to go. There’s nothing I can do about that, so we’re making this rug size work for now! I have thought about layering it over another rug though and turning it 90 degrees to get a bit more length out of it. We’ll see!
Our rattan and glass coffee table is a vintage find from one of my favorite local antique stores. I love the texture of this piece and I picked it up for a song. Love it when that happens! If you like this look, I found two that are similar here and here.
My most recent find for this space is the wood frame lounge chair. It’s reminiscent of the Ace chair, but comes in at a much more affordable price point. You’ll never guess where it’s from! I’ve been impressed with it so far. It’s comfortable and looks much more expensive than it is.
One thing I’ve struggled with is how to style our fireplace mantel. We have almost 10’ ceilings in here and the mantel is quite deep, so most things I’ve tried so far have felt too small or don’t have enough presence. I do love the painting up there, but I haven’t quite figured out what to put up there with it. For reference, that’s a 40” square canvas; in other words, BIG! I’m thinking I need some tall and monochromatic pieces like a group of sculptural black vases might work well.
One of my favorite family pieces found a home right next to the fireplace. It’s nestled nicely in that corner and I love it paired with this mid-century style lamp. The painting you see hanging next to it is one that my mom found in the trash near our old home in Philadelphia - how crazy is that! One man’s trash…you know the saying. 😉
I love this next view, and it’s where I’ll leave you for today! I finally had a chance to put up my wall-mounted bookshelf from CB2 (it used to live in my office!) a few weeks ago and it’s just what that little piece of wall needed. It balances out the height of the fireplace and gives us some much needed storage space for fun and functional items.
I really, really want to add curtains to that stretch of windows behind the sofa. I think it’ll add some softness and break up all the white! Now I just need to find the right ones…all in due time!
Overall, I’m really happy with the direction this room is going! I can’t wait to add some finishing touches, and I’ll be sure to share them as they happen!
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