Spring Changes Around My Home

My living room has gone through a few iterations when it comes to furniture. Rugs, couches, plants and side tables have come and gone.

But up until last week, my gallery wall had remained the same. This was my set-up when I first moved in 18 months ago:

The few months that followed saw a new couch (after selling these bad boys on Kijiji!), new rug, ridding the ottoman for a coffee table and the addition of a new grey lounge chair. As of a few months ago, my living room took on this configuration:

And it worked… for a while. That was until we got Piper and all she wanted to do was be at the window, which at the time was blocked by the couch. That meant another layout change, swapping the couch with the grey chair, looking like this:

And, for the last month or so at least, that’s how it has stayed. But after a few weeks like this, I started noticing the gallery wall, which was once centred over the old couch, and then perfectly off-centre over/beside the grey chair, looked odd. It was both too small and too big, awkwardly placed, and the white of the frames and matting made the plaster wall look old and off-white, which it is in reality and something I’ll eventually address with fresh paint, but I digress.

I was craving something new, as if the layout change wasn’t enough, so I took down my art in an attempt to re-configure it, but nothing was feeling right. I pulled all of my art in the house out of storage when I stumbled across and remembered this old, vintage plaque I got at an antique shop up North of The History of Dogs. I tried a few versions with the plaque paired with other art, but it wasn’t right, so I I tossed the whole thing and just put up the plaque, now centred with a few decor pieces left and right. Oddly enough, the cream colour on the plaque makes the walls look whiter, which I’m welcoming with open arms. And now that we have a dog, I can justify the piece and it’s taken on new meaning. Once again, Piper has changed my home in more ways than one.

The remaining shots are extra photos of my living room and kitchen area from a recent photo shoot for an upcoming Design*Sponge home tour, where I’ll share other (better) photos, including looks at the rest of my home. More on that later, in the meantime, enjoy!

The grey polka-dot and navy Ikat pillows are from Tonic Living. Gold stool and Ibis head are from Leon’s Canada.

Coffee table books from my favourite illustrators and artists: James Jean’s Rebus, Tomer Hanuka’s Overkill and Douglas Coupland: Everywhere is Anywhere is Anything is Everything

Kitchen chairs are from Structube, here’s a better look at them.

Rule number one of taking photographs: always assume everything will end up in the photo.

I found a new home for this illustration I made two years ago. Who knew pink and wood looked so great together?

We’ve also bought some new technology. Now that we have A/C, I figured we were due to upgrade the lighting fixture, so I installed this new DVI light courtesy of my sister, who’s a lighting designer there, in my kitchen to replace the old fan. We’ve now actually got our home security all set up, just to give us peace of mind!