Gentle Readers, have I thanked you recently for sticking with me through the trials and tribulations of my living room?
Thank you.
The room isn’t finished yet (shocker), but I thought you deserved a little success story.
Remember that big huge wall over the sofa? The blank one?
When we first moved in, we were (I was) in our “let’s try and make the living room look like a B&B Italia ad and paint over the fireplace because corner fireplaces are tricky so let’s just ignore it” phase. We put the back of the sofa against the big window and leaned a huge piece of art against that wall. Hmm.
During the dramatic “red and black stage set” phase, we hung two black and white engravings there.
Later, during the “I will get control of this room if it kills me and it just might” phase, we hung two landscape photographs there. They were always too low, which we knew, but we thought it was temporary, which it was (which everything has turned out to be)…
And most recently, during the “I am spinning out of control” phase, I hung a piece of art from the dining room there. I knew it was the wrong shape, but I thought little art fairies would come in the night and hang other things next to it to make it work.
They didn’t.
So the other day, I went around the house and took down all the interesting art we have. I tinkered around with it on the floor for a while…(ok, for a day…)
And voila.
I’m pleased. My husband is relieved. Our children think it’s fun to lie upside-down on the sofa and make the pictures crooked with their feet.
Darling angels.
Tomorrow I’ll tell you which pictures came from which rooms…unless – be honest – you have had it up to here with my living room. If so, please say the word, and I won’t mention it again until the whole darn thing is finished.
Just leave me the address of your nursing home so I’ll know how to reach you.
Annie Elliott – aka bossy color – is an interior decorator and design blogger in Washington, D.C. She has been quoted in publications from The Washington Post to The Seattle Times and is considered an expert on color, residential space planning, and telling people what to do in the nicest way possible.