May 10, 2008

Imaginary Decorating - Take Two

Alright internet peeps, I need your help.

I'm sure you'll recall I have no decorating sense.

Here's the long wall of my living room. Pardon the barrel-and-stitching distortion, my floor and ceiling aren't really curved. Here's what I've got to work with: A very long wall, two couches along it, the lamp in the middle is the one controlled by the lightswitch to the room. If you wanted, we could move it to the end of the left (flowered) couch and put another one at the far end of the right (blue futon) couch. You can imagine the left couch without the *stuff* on it - I was taking down and moving around the pix FOR these pictures and left it on the couch when I took the pic. Silly me.

Anyway. The wall is actually WHITE. The room is pretty bright and airy, but only gets indirect light from outside, the windows (far right) face North. The North wall has big windows on the left (see small pix at end) and the TV armoire in the middle. The East wall (opposite this one) has bookcases at each end, and a long fireplace/mantle wall in between with family pix on it (see small pic at end) - the south end of this room has the navy loveseat recliner and then a space to walk through between the front hall and family room, and behind that is the piano alcove and kitchen.

Still with me?

So here's a picture of that wall with no pix on it:

I had some pictures in other places, and then I bought these cute 6 little shadow boxes in a rainbow of colors. I don't know what I'll put in them. (Ideas welcome!) So I was going to move around some pictures and try to place the shadow boxes.

here's my first attempt at driving the pictures around and arranging them.

But I'm pretty sure you could do better. So ... where would you put stuff?

if you are really into this and have something that will open Photoshop files, you can grab the layered file here and drive the layers around, which is always fun. Each piece of wall art is in it's own layer. Or you can write out instructions and I'll try to do what you said. :)


http://www.andfam.net/kimblog/blogpix/lr_upload/r_whole_layers_ps.psd

Other random rambles related to trying to decorate this room ...

the other couch in here is a navy blue loveseat recliner, coming out at a right angle from the left end of the left flowery couch. The floor is wood. The room is all painted white, other than the brick fireplace across from this wall.

I tried to find a recent picture of the LR but I can't find one. I can take a few if you need to see the whole room. I don't know how this decorating works.

Anyway, can you drive around - verbally or with photoshop - those things on the wall and tell me where you would place them, if you were decorating my living room?

What else would you do to the room (here's where the seeing the whole room might help, eh?) I guess there's these pics from before we started the OrgoWork:

but we've moved furniture around since then to be more useful. The white wicker is gone. The two black chairs are still in there, they move around depending on whether we're watching videos or playing the wii. The navy loveseat recliner is in the same place as in these pictures. Some of the excess clutter is gone. :) Does that help any?

Oh, but anyway. Short of buying new furniture, what else would you do for the room? I like light, bright colors and am leaning towards a little "rainbow" focus (like the 6 shadow boxes) to try to tie in some of the warm hues in the room without *decorating* in warm browns and golds and oranges. Does that make sense? I have no real sense of how to decorate, though, so if I'm just going in the wrong direction, tell me. The worst i can do is continue to blunder and reject your advice, right? :-)

I'll quit rambling and let you get to work.

Posted by Kim at May 10, 2008 9:55 AM
Comments

Ok, just one thing off the top of my head... it looks "wrong" to me to have both blue frames on the same side... switch one blue with the yellow, IMO :nod

Posted by: Dawn Penguin at May 10, 2008 3:30 PM

both blue?

It's hard to tell, I guess, but there's two sets: red/orange/yellow and green/blue/purple - the blue is a little turquoise and the purple is a blueish ... but there's not (technically) two blue.

I put the "warm" on one end - over the 'warmer' couch and closer to the picture with the warmer colors ... there's also an orange (mostly) painting on the south end of the room, in the piano alcove. And then I put the "cool" colors at the other end, over the 'cool' couch, closer to the window.

Not that I'm rejecting your advice, just explaining why the three and three started where they did.

so you're saying move ... the purple? ... over to the 'warm' side and the yellow to the 'cool' side?

Posted by: Kim at May 10, 2008 4:12 PM

also, I should add, just by the nature of the way I took the pictures, the shadow boxes look a little brighter in contrast (well, actually, they are about right but the rest of the room looks 'warmer' due to the low light than in real life ...

Posted by: kim at May 10, 2008 4:14 PM

I am not a fan of 2 couches side by side. I have a hard time picturing the whole room to know what I would do though.

Posted by: MichelleIN at May 10, 2008 4:56 PM

I'm not a huge fan of the couches like that, either. It does provide us with space to all lounge when watching videos together, and room to have a few families over for Bible Study. But I am not totally happy with it, just not sure what else to do with it.

Posted by: kim at May 10, 2008 6:02 PM

Take a wide picture of the room w/ those couches in it... if you can.

For now, I wouldn't put the big pics on the same wall as the littles, but group the littles together, lower, over one couch.

Nicole

Posted by: Nicole at May 10, 2008 7:13 PM

Oh. The blue & purple look the same in the picture (to me) ... so yes, your assessment is probably correct :)

Posted by: Dawn Penguin at May 10, 2008 7:28 PM

I like the picture arrangement over your couches. I like the warm side/cool side thing you've got going. My only suggestion would be to switch the two pictures on the far right. It looks like the bottom one is just one picture and the top one is the multiple pics of your squill. I think the squill should be on the bottom since it will be easier to look up and see the one picture on the top, rather than the multiple picture on the top.

Posted by: karen at May 10, 2008 10:06 PM

I love your greeny/blue home! :)

For my own home, I am a fan of nearly bare walls.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY KIM!!! Hugs, Robin

Posted by: Robin at May 11, 2008 9:27 PM

Kim, how about spray painting all the frames all one color? Perhaps black? It will unify them and will look sharpe.

Happy Mother's Day

Posted by: Daisy at May 12, 2008 11:36 AM
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