I know this is more of a personal post, and not really photography related, (maybe it is?) but I have shared so much of our adventure decorating our living room on my Instagram and some of Facebook, that I feel like I should make a full post here of the living room transformation for those that have asked to see the BEFORE and AFTER. I am also including the PROCESS of putting everything together.

First things first, I couldn’t have done it without my dear best friend Ana Jackson. Not only she is so patient with me and not making me feel a dummy for my lack of knowledge in home decor and interior designing, she has an incredible talent, she is a natural, she spent hours and hours of her already busy life walking around furniture stores and lots of phone calls and text messages to help me find the perfect pieces. THANK YOU, Aninha!

My amazing sister-in-law that lives in Brazil, is an interior designer and I so wish she could be here, nonetheless she kept in touch through text message and gave me pointers.

So, Brandon and I have been married for almost 11 years and we never really decorated our home. Because we dont own a home yet, (and we are perfectly fine with that), we always thought that “one day” when we buy our home, we can then decide on what kind of furniture and decoration we want to put in it, and we didnt want to buy something to later realized it wouldn’t look nice on our home…. All that we have is either purchased without really thinking of the other pieces of furniture we already own or it was given to us.

A few months ago we (mostly me) kind of felt that we wanted to make our place now look like our own. I then told Ana and we started gathering some ideas here and there.
It felt exciting and scary, and overwhelming all at the same time. So many thoughts in my head…. “What if I buy this brand new and very expensive couch and then a few days later that we dont love it anymore?” or “What if we finally find ourselves in the position to purchase a home and none of the furniture we acquire now goes with it?”, or “What if I am just dreaming too much and I cant make this happen for real?”
Gosh, so many possibilities, so many choices in front of me.

But I decided to do it!

We actually started with the kitchen. We purchased a new table and chairs. Also new bar stools. Because it’s still not all finished, I will have to make a new post at a alter date when we have everything done.

The living room was next, but because the couch had to be ordered and it would take a few weeks to get here, we had to wait longer to order the other pieces and make a decision on the rug, for example.
Once the couch was in, we also built the TV stand and bookshelves, I designed a few options for the wall gallery, and we went to a few stores looking for rugs and decorative pillows. I actually purchased some that didn’t really work out all together, so I returned them.
This all happened during Memorial Day weekend since husband and I had a few extra days to tackle it all.

The week after Ana and I went shopping for frames and small decor items. I ordered the frames online and got the pictures sent to my professional lab.

This past week, Ana came over to help me hang the frames and put some final touches. My prints were done by the end of the week and I placed them on the frames by myself.

Being a photographer, the wall gallery part was the most exciting for me, and believe it or not, it was the hardest one to decide. I first had plans to have the gallery over by the other wall on the shorter side of the couch, and I even posted a design I did on IG, but then after things started coming together, it just didnt seem right, so we switched it up. It is so important to me that we have our pictures well displayed, and before I almost didn’t have anything on the walls, and since our living room has vaulted ceiling and  it is even harder to come up with ideas on how to fill the blank space. I think we did a great job! Gold brassy frames are exactly what I wanted and they are just perfect for our decor.

It’s done! (well, almost. I still need to find the right pillows AND a coffee table to complement the whole setup).

It’s our favorite spot in the house. We love hanging out in our living room and we needed to do something with it. Now it’s so bright and clean.

I am so excited how it turned out and am now even more excited to do the rest of the house. Next is the girls’ room.

I hope you all enjoy the before, during and after pictures. Please, don’t laugh at how horrible my living room looked before. It’s actually very sad to see now that everything looks so nice.

xoxo
Beka

 

 

 

 

My cute little space, where I edit and spend many hours working.

I still want to add doors to the middle cubes, and switch the grey boxes.