House Tour: Living Room

So here's the first room that's ready for a House Tour: the living room. I do still want to change the paint color from soft yellow to off-white; and of course, I need to patch the various corners of the walls that the previous owners allowed their dogs to gnaw on (is that safe??).

Ladies, I think you'll agree that the pièce de résistance of this room is the pink velvet sofa from ABC Carpet & Home. No doubt every man reading this (that's 0, for those of you counting) will be surprised to learn that this purchase has been unequivocally approved by John. (Risky: I bought it without him seeing it, but I did bring home a fabric swatch.) The sofa is deep and comfortable, with modern lines that keep it from being too feminine; plus, the color is perfect when you have a furry menagerie in a range of colors.

With more wall space, I've also been trying all sorts of crazy word combos (landscape + meadow + mist comes to mind) on Etsy in order to add to our art collection—not only is it basically nice to have artwork throughout your house, but it's especially important since there are so many dings, holes, and craters on our walls. Seriously, I can't possibly patch and paint them all right away and art is a terrific Band-Aid. We're pretty well covered in the living room; check out the oil painting of a stylish young bookworm we hung over the mantel. We found her at the Brimfield Antique Show this past July.

I consider this guy art as well, because a large ceramic humpback whale is a rarity. I found him in an antique shop in New Hampshire; he's my homage to the New England shore. Have you ever been on a whale watch and seen one of these incredible animals breech the ocean's surface? It's very humbling, and that's not just the unrelenting sea-sickness.

Finally, here is a detail of what is probably my favorite part of the room: two walls are made up of built-in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. I remember thinking that all of my books (so many!) + all of those shelves (like 35 of them!) would = an at-home library. But apparently my reading prowess does not meet the standards set by this room, and I've had to improvise. I can fill two shelves all the way across one wall, and on the other one I've had to implement a creative stacking technique. Amazon wish-list, I'm watching you! (Luckily there are so many great books coming out this fall, from Carine Roitfeld: Irreverent to Deborah Needleman's The Perfectly Imperfect Home: How to Decorate and Live Well and the one I'm probably looking forward to the most, Nomad: A Global Approach to Interior Style by the wonderful Sibella Court.)