I used to love Christmas in our old house. The living room had wooden floors, a beautiful fireplace and white walls, so it always felt like the perfect backdrop for Christmas. I loved how the room looked when it was all decorated for Christmas, and how homely it all felt once the tree was up.
After spending last Christmas in our magnolia living room with its dark carpets and textured wallpaper, I set myself to have the living room finished before this coming Christmas. I’m actually quite glad we didn’t do it sooner, because I’ve decided to switch the living room and playroom round so that we don’t have to trudge across a carpet of toys to get to the kitchen.
I’ve been trying to work out what sort of sofa to get for the new room. Tesco have a sofa buying guide which I would recommend reading if you’re in the process of choosing a sofa. We bought our current sofas when we were first married. They are huge, and feel a little oversized in our current living room but it’s nowhere near as ridiculous as it was in the first house we rented. I think that entire house was actually smaller than our sofa. The playroom is in desperate need of some seating, so I’m thinking about buying a new sofa to go in the living room and leaving one of our current sofas in the playroom.
The sofas we have at the moment are dark grey, which is great because the fabric still looks clean even after three and a half years of abuse from Ebony. I quite like the idea of going for a coloured sofa now, as a way of adding colour to the room. No matter how many coloured living rooms I pin, or paint samples I look through, I always seem to end up painting everything white.
The soon-to-be living room is also missing a working fireplace too. I love the idea of having a wood burner, especially because the house gets so cold in winter. I’ve been doing a bit of research to work out whether this is possible, and having a look at some of the DEFRA approved stove options out there.
We’re definitely going to rip up the carpet and will hopefully be able to tidy up the floorboards underneath. That’s what we did in the old house and I really loved how it looked. I’ve also been looking for other bits and pieces to make the room feel more homely. Our current living room feels totally devoid of life because it’s temporary so we haven’t bothered to invest much love into it. I’m looking forward to buying brightly coloured cushions, prints for the wall and a big rug to go on the floor.
The house still feels so unfinished, it would be nice to have a pretty place to retreat to at the end of the day. I’m just really hoping we manage to get it all done in time for Christmas. And that I can figure out a way of explaining how Father Christmas would get in through a wood burning stove…
This post was in collaboration with Tesco.