How I styled my dream sofa
Do you remember my post from a few months ago where I made a model of my living room out of paper to see if my dream sofa would fit in the room? If you missed it or want to reread go here.
Making a scale model is a fun way to plan your next room makeover and helps you if you find it hard to visualise how a new wall colour or a piece of furniture would look in your space. I filled my mini living room with my dream West Elm furniture, I had been eying up their Peggy sectionals for ages as I love its clean lines. The sofa I had in my living room was never right for the space. It did fine in my old house but it was to bulky, heavy and dark for the botanical living room I created in my new home. So when the Blogtacular conference and West Elm ran a competition where you could win a lovely price I new right away the blog post I wanted to make to enter. I got crafting and made my dream living room in miniature! The judges loved my video so much I won the competition!! Have a look at the image below my sofa miniature has turned into a real life version that sits in my living room it was a pretty good mock up if I say so myself ;)
I thought it might be a nice idea to show you how I styled my new look living room so have a look at the video below to see how I achieved this final look.
Have a look at the before and after picture, what a difference!! The living room never felt right to me, I loved the wall colour, my wall long bookcase I build under the windows and the floor wasn't bad either but that sofa was just to bulky. I never even had an armrest on one side of the sofa as it did't fit space! I tried making new covers for the sofa, I tried styling it with blankets and cushions I even made little legs for it (made the sofa look worse!) but nothing worked making the sofa look good in the room. But have a look at just how perfectly the new sectional fits in the space and how beautiful the grey looks against my soft green walls. Cause the Peggy sectional has these beautiful tapered wooden legs it gives the illusion of space even though we have more space to sit now then on the old sofa it looks way less bulky.
I used a lot of pieces I already had to make this new look work as why buy new when you can adapt? Like the white rug, I knew the brown rug we had in the room wouldn't work but I had this beautiful white rug in my bedroom that would look great with the grey sofa. I simply swapped the rugs over, the sisal rug went upstairs and the white rug is now the focal point of the living. The rug is a very basic B&Q find I customised with tassels made from embroidery floss. To see the tutorial go here. The same goes for the two coffee tables, they are from Ikea and never looked right against the wall in the before shot but now they are in the middle of the room it really shows of their oval shapes.
The yellow pouffe is a new buy, I wanted to make my own at first but found this one online for not much more then the price of the materials I had to buy. The yellow works great with my wall colour (Annie Sloan wall paint in Versailles) and the grey of the West Elm Peggy sofa. The colour yellow is the same tone as a small detail in my curtains and I have some of the cushions pick up the same tone too. I don't like things being to matchy but it's nice to have one colour come back a few times in small accents.
Cushions are great for colour pops and I like to mix my patterns for a more relaxed look, clock wise from top left these cushions are from:
- Hand woven cushion with yellow trim (and another one with a orange trim) Rowenna Mason Etsy UK. These were a lovely gift from the Etsy people to get me comfy for the winter.
- Throw over arm rest from West Elm, this is an old one but love the pattern and colours with the grey tone of the sofa
- Patterned and detailed small cushion with mint and yellow from West Elm, in store now as I picked it up last weekend. The grey wool cushion with blue embroidered details is from John Lewis.
- Bone shaped pillow from Edwyn UK for Etsy UK, another thoughtful gift from the Etsy girls as they wanted Kermit to be all nice and snug too!
- The grey chair is the Strandmon from Ikea and extremely comfortable, the cushion is an oldie Theo Keller for Wayfair
- Cushions not on the photo above but on the other images and in video. The yellow square is from Ikea and the green and white patterned one with pom pom trim was a great Aldi find.
The photo wall looks even better with the grey chair in front of it then the white rocking chair I first of all had there, to see how I created this wall head over here for the tutorial. The plant boxes and the side table are projects from my new book Made with Salvaged Wood.
I love all the grey, green and yellow tones together, it gives such a soft look to my botanical/Scandinavian style living room. Like I said in the video you can change the look of a room easily by changing up the accessories. At the moment there is a lot of grey and yellow but come mod winter I might go more white and textured. In the summer I might add a lot more pattern or maybe even bold florals!
Can we just talk about how cute the dog planter is! I spotted him last weekend when I had a quick look around West Elm, I had a meeting close to the shop and of course couldn't resist having a nose around. West Elm do great animal shaped planters and I already have a few dotted around my studio. I love a bit of whimsical in an interior and this doggy head provides just that.
The side table is an old project from the website, find it's tutorial here, the cork candle holder is from GoodHood and the cork coasters are from Ikea.
How cute is mister Kermit with his Edwyn UK bone shaped cushion!! This dog loves a good snuggle and I often build him a nest out of cushions and blankets, spoiled dog anyone? :) He might have to fight Ian for the cushion though as he claims it is the perfect neck cushion.
I am so happy with my new Peggy sofa!! Thanks for choosing me as the winner of the competition Blogtacular and West Elm! Do you have a dream sofa? Or another piece of furniture you have been lusting after for ages? I would love to know!
You might be inspired by my cushion fluffing in the video and would like some new editions to style up your sofa well you are in luck! The lovely people from Etsy UK have given me two cushion to give away to a friend and I thought which fiend is better then a blog friend! Head over to my Instagram (www.instagram.com/byhestergrams) and look for the below image. Leave a commend under the photo on how you like to get cozy for winter and I will pick one lucky winner who can style up their home with these two beautiful cushions from REW homeware. The competition is open until Thursday the 9th of November 9pm and for UK residents only. Good luck!!
Liked the picture ledge behind the sofa? Tune in next week to see how you can make that yourself! And there might be another competition to go with that post too, its like Christmas over here on handmade home! :)
See you next week xx Hester
Video and photo's by Hester van Overbeek, pin with the right link backs and credits but please don't use otherwise without permission. The sofa was a competition price and all my options about West Elm are my own
