Hey chaps, long time no see!
Way back in November 2013 I showed you what our Living Room was like when we first moved in. Here's a link back to that old post. It was looking pretty sad and bare, and since then I have been working hard to re-decorate. It has taken me ages to find everything that would fit, but I think I'm pretty much there now, so today I've decided to finally do a living room tour!
As I mentioned in my first post, I decided to go for a yellow and grey colour scheme. Eventually I also decided to give it a bit of a botanical/natural history museum feel, which you might notice a little bit more in the close up photos.
The first things we bought were the sofa, the armchair and the rug. The sofa came from Next, and the armchair and rug were both from Ikea.
The cushions came from H&M Home, except for the little grey ones which I made myself from off-cuts from the curtains (They were crazy long!)
I hunted for quite a while to find an old botanical encyclopaedia which had pretty pictures in it that I could hang, and in the end we found one at an antique shop which I mentioned in this post. I chose Kiko frames to hang them in as I liked the simplistic look.
My absolute favourite buy was my hexagon shelves, which I had specially made and shipped from the US. I think they make a really nice focal piece in the room, and I was really pleased with the way they turned out. The birds on display are actually made of lego, you can find the kit here . I like the fact that they have their latin names on little plaques below them, I feel like it fits with the museum theme pretty well!
So just to compare, this is what the lounge looked like before...
...and here it is after! A great improvement I'm sure you will agree! The curtains were also from Ikea. I think having less heavy curtains has made a huge difference to the room. And I think painting the walls grey makes it look a little bit more homely.
I made the butterfly chart hanging above the fireplace using a pretty poster, you can find my No-Saw DIY here.
I also made a little trio of pictures using another botanical book that my friends Mum bought for me. I couldn't decide which pictures to use as there were quite a few good ones, but the great thing about the Kiko frames is that I can swap them whenever I want!
I bought these agate slices when I was on holiday in Majorca, I thought they would make great coasters to go on the table, and they are so pretty! I might buy some more of these just to put on display on the shelves.
I re-painted this little side table to match my colour scheme, since it used to be blue. The phone is another of my favourite things in the room, it was given to us as a wedding gift!
This magazine rack started out life as a yarn holder which came free with a knitting magazine. I decided I wanted to re-cover it to match the room, and I found some awesome honeycomb fabric from Zazzle which I thought would work really well. The amount of choices of fabric patterns and fabric types on Zazzle is insane, so it took me ages to decide. You can also design your own fabric, which I would love to try at some point!
All I did to make it was to unpick the old fabric from the frame, then I used this as a template, and tried to make an exact copy of it with my honeycomb fabric. The only tricky bit was attaching it securely back onto the frame. In the end I had to do this by hand which was a little bit difficult as the canvas fabric which I ordered is quite thick, but I got there in the end and I think it looks fab!
I also used the same fabric to make a little table cloth for the coffee table which you can see in the earlier pictures. I think that they really match my hexagon shelves beautifully . 
Another good buy was my Oliver Bonas shelves/drawers. I was pining after them for a long time since they were pretty expensive, but in the end I decided I had to have them! They definitely help bring the room together.
This TV cabinet, as well as the coffee table were both things that I found at the dump. They cost me £5 each and were both a little worse for wear when I found them. But after a good sanding down and a few coats of grey paint they looked good as new! This cabinet is actually the perfect size and we can fit the X-Box in the little cubby hole and all of our games inside.
There are still a couple of things I would like to do before I will feel the whole room is complete, but I am much happier with it now that I feel there is some sort of decor going on, rather than random furniture thrown into a room.
Laura xXx
Disclaimer - The honeycomb fabric was gifted to me by Zazzle. I was really pleased with the quality of the fabric and service and I would recommend to those that are looking to add a unique touch to their decor.
