It’s Friday and the end of my first week after my recent holiday to Italy with the family. And honestly it’s flown by; in fact it’s fair to say that it feels like I haven’t been away at all. It’s funny isn’t it how quickly you get back into the swing of things. Since I’ve been back it’s been all things house related as we order windows and make plans with electricians and plumbers. I’m excited, September and October are definitely two of my favourite months and I’ve got that back to school feeling.

With the fresh start vibe going on I thought I’d share some living room inspiration with you since we’re not quite there yet with the finished article. Here’s hoping that the end result will look as gorgeous as some of the examples in the gallery below.

To start I’ll give you the lowdown on the room as it stands. Situated on the other side of the hallway to our proposed home office which you can read more about in this post, the room is light, bright and airy with a south-westerly aspect. The room is a decent size measuring 4m wide and 5.5m long at its furthest point. Much like in the study, we’ve ripped out the fireplace which was an eyesore and not original so there’s currently a gaping hole ready to be filled with something beautiful. Either side of the ‘hole’ are two decent sized alcoves which I want to use to house some built in storage. Ideally I’d like them to be symmetrical, look classy but be reasonably priced so I’m considering using the service offered by Jali which Lauren has mentioned in some of her home decor posts. Anything to hide the plethora of plastic tat Hector has accumulated. I envisage these being painted in a dark colour on the blue side.

There’s a bay window at the front of the house mirroring the one found in the study which I’d love to fit with shutters if only to hide the uPVC windows that the previous owner had installed. Ste has said a resolute no to reinstating timber framed windows unfortunately as the budget needs to be spent elsewhere. Oh and there’s a door that leads to the garden at the far end which we’re currently debating whether to install French doors (my choice) or bifold (the boy’s desire). The price difference between the two will be the decider in what we finally plump for (please please please be the French doors…)

We still haven’t decided on a sofa as per this post but I know that I want something squidgy and dark but hard wearing (so long velvet…sob). We’re thinking that we’ll opt for carpet and probably for a moody seductive colour on the walls and then that’s as far as we’ve got.

The inspiration in the gallery below goes some way in illustrating the look I’m trying to achieve for the living room…

OK so I’ve already chatted in previous posts at length about sofas so I’m not going to cover old ground in today’s ramblings. That said I think we need to talk about pouffes.

Ste and I decided early on (around about the time that Hector smacked his head off my mum’s walnut creation) that we weren’t going to have a coffee table in the living room. For a start we resort to using it as a dumping ground for magazines and coffee cups which isn’t the best look but mostly it just seems too hazardous for Hector to be around. Instead we agreed that we wanted a pouffe – that way we could still put our feet up (and maybe balance a magazine or two) and the room would look stylish without being cluttered. My heart belongs to this deep buttoned number from Sweetpea and Willow but it’s definitely out of our budget (and a little on the large size too) for the foreseeable future. Do any of you have any recommendations for where I can source something similar?

Ideally we’d like a woodburner. I have my eye on this rather fetching beauty from Chesney’s but it is eye-wateringly expensive so either I will have to forgo a new Winter wardrobe this year or hope that Santa will be good to me 😉 . Should my wishes be granted I’ll need some snazzy storage for all that firewood and a blanket or two to snuggle down underneath.

Lighting is definitely up there in my list of priorities. I’ve specifically asked if we can have two different circuits for the room i.e. one that controls a mixture of lamps I intend to dot about the space so I can simply flick a switch and they all come on at once and then another circuit for some simple overhead lighting…probably spotlights. I’m also toying with the idea of having three very masculine task lights along the back wall a bit like these ones but worry that it might look a bit ‘granny’.

We have piles upon piles of prints waiting to be propped on shelves and hung on walls. I haven’t decided whether to go monochrome yet or opt for subtle colour as it will depend on what colour we decide to paint the walls but there’ll definitely be lots of family snaps in amongst the pictures. I’ll finish it all off with a beautiful mirror above the fireplace and a smattering of candles.

That’s it for now. Hopefully I’ll be back soon reporting on the progress within the house and some real live images to share with you. If you want to keep up with my interior adventures oh and a hefty dose of baby spam then you can follow me on Instagram here. Have a brilliant weekend folks xx