If you didn’t already know that I am a planner to the core and over-think almost everything in my life, you absolutely will after this post. 🙂
See, when Erica wants a new couch, Erica doesn’t just go to a few furniture stores to pick out a couch (insert Jamie’s palm to forehead because he knows his wife HAS TO BE EXTRA). Erica does enough research to earn a college degree regarding fabric options, arm options, predicted life of said furniture, how quickly back cushions start to sag, seat depth, potential coordinating pieces, etc.
And it’s a good thing this research process will take a long (!) time, because that gives Erica (and Jamie hehe) time to save, save, save. They’ll need a few pennies because buying a new couch will eventually turn into doing an entire overhaul of the room.
And they’ll love it.
[Disclaimer] This post is brought to you by a mother of three who was throwing toys in the playroom, fluffing pillows, and moving around baby gear LIKE A BOSS 10 minutes before the photographer arrived to make it look like kids don’t actually live here. Don’t be fooled; This room only looks like this every once in a blue moon. 🙂
Here is a picture of what our living room looked like this summer. I will be the very first to say that this room did not need an “overhaul”. It was comfortable and cozy and functioned just like we needed it to.
The only problem with this room is that it was a collection of things that were very mismatched that we made work in our Kansas home before planting roots in Alabama. Now, we were ready to decorate THIS room in a home we plan to stay put in for a while.

Living Room Overhaul
So Jamie and I settled on a budget to save $5,000, and he basically gave me free rein to do whatever I wanted with this room. We had discussed the things he wanted in the room and his likes and dislikes, so I took all of that into consideration when planning and purchasing. The first thing I did was get some ideas on Modsy.com. If you haven’t used this resource before, I highly recommend it!
My two biggest goals were this:
- design a room that is comfortable and functional for all kinds of scenarios, whether it be a Friday night snuggled up as a family of five watching movies or for a business-casual function we may host at our home with Jamie’s co-workers and their spouses
- select pieces that we will love and that hold up for a minimum of 10 years

I designed this room to be cozy and conducive to lounge around and watch movies, to sit and play games with friends, to sit on comfortably while mingling with shower guests, while also being a place that our three young (!) children could be kids in their own home.
After all, my family of five will use this room day in and day out, so while I wanted to create a beautiful, welcoming space for friends and extended family to gather, I also wanted to ultimately create a space where our family unit can just be. We do not have another TV room or sitting area. This is it.

So after doing over a year’s worth of research and saving up, I got to work on making my visions for this space a reality!
Near the window, I selected the Harlow swivel chair from Pottery Barn in an ivory Crypton Linen fabric. I wanted a smaller-scale chair for this area that could swivel to see the TV but also swivel to face the other seating options for conversation. Next to the chair, I have a blanket basket.

For our main sofa, we selected the Pottery Barn 95″ York deep seat slope arm with bench cushion in an ivory Crypton Linen Fabric. (Do you see how many customizable options there were with just the sofa? Style, length, depth, bench cushion, arm style, fabric type, fabric color, etc.)
We also selected our throw pillow covers and inserts from Pottery Barn as well. The white marble side table to the right has floated throughout different rooms in our homes for years, but has now made a permanent home in our living room. The wooden side table to the left was purchased from Wayfair.

These two Loralie armchairs have been the biggest surprise; They were the only seating options in this room that we didn’t test out in the store. They are bigger than expected and way more comfortable. I expected them to function more as accent chairs, but Jamie and the girls sit in them as much as they do the sofa.
We selected them in a white finish in Basketweave Slub Ivory fabric.
The lumbar throw pillows are from Home Goods. The “C” table in the middle of them is also from Home Goods.

The layered rugs were purchased from RugsUSA. I did an entire review on why we purchased them and how we like them in this post. I will add that I did end up superglueing the animal print rug to the jute rug because we were having issues with the animal rug not staying put (something I suspected would happen). The superglue did the trick, and now these rugs work absolutely perfect together.


While we loved our former leather coffee table because it was super safe for kids, we found that they often used it as a “launching pad” to jump from the coffee table to the sofa and vice versa. It was driving us bananas, but they couldn’t help themselves. 😉
It was also a bit too bit for this space, so we opted to get something round (without sharp edges that could hurt our clumsy kids) and somewhat small. We purchased this table from Joss & Main. The faux lemon tree and gold trinket dish are from Target, and the Volcano candle is from Amazon.

So let me tell ya about the curtains. Did you know that curtains are not cheap? LOL. These are the 50 x 96″ Bryce Check curtains from Pottery Barn, and we purchased them with credit we’d earned after buying all of the furniture with my Pottery Barn credit card.
“Wait, whaaaat? I thought you guys didn’t use credit cards?”
Technically we don’t. BUT! After MUCH discussion with Jamie AND our financial advisor, I applied for and used their store credit card to buy the swivel chair, two armchairs, the sofa, and pillow covers. If you spend over $750 on your credit card, you can select one of two options: to either receive one year of interest-free financing OR 10% back in store credit.

Since we’d saved up $5k+ in cash to fund this overhaul, we selected the 10% back in store credit. This allowed me to snag these four curtain panels and the four pillow inserts for free. We still have the card but do not use it.
We kept the curtain rods that my mother-in-law made for me years ago. Do you remember them hanging in our Kansas home’s sunroom?
The floating wood ledges are from Wayfair, and the faux greenery on the ledges were purchased from Hobby Lobby.


I plan to write posts dedicated entirely to each of the large pieces we purchased because I have a lot to share about all of them, with hopes that our experience is helpful to you in purchasing similar pieces in the future. So please stay tuned. 🙂
I had no idea what I wanted to do about a console table, potential hanging mirror, etc. No clue.
I figured I would just continue to pop into stores, look online, and figure out a better idea of what I wanted.
But then I saw this table on Halloween. I was in Home Goods with a friend and stopped dead in my tracks when I saw it. It was beautiful. It had just the touch of glam I LOVE but would also provide great storage. This was the type of piece we could keep for decades. It’s timeless! It was $500 though, and I wasn’t expecting to get a table that day. So with Jillian attached to my chest in a baby carrier, I walked around the store for an hour grabbing items, staging this table, and hemming and hawing to death whether I should take this baby home.
I finally decided that I would regret it the minute I pulled out of the parking lot if I didn’t scoop this table up. This was the exact piece I didn’t know I wanted. Plus, I already owned these lamps ($50 a piece from Home Goods during a previous trip), and I knew they’d look great.
And can you believe I was able to transport it home in my minivan? SCORE! 😉
The eucalyptus stems were dirt cheap from IKEA, as was the white pitcher. I loved how the blue stripes tied into the rest of my vision/color scheme for the room.
Have I mentioned the overall color scheme I was going for? Should probably do that.
Large neutrals + greenery + shades of blue + lots of gold + natural brown wood
I will also share more specific details in the next few weeks about this funky accent wall (that I couldn’t be more pleased or obsessed with). This wall is wide and always bugged me, so I’d been keeping my eye out for months regarding what I could do with this wall.
Since our home is a new construction, I am always on the lookout for ways to make it feel less “cookie cutter”. This statement wall checked both boxes: it added a bit of uniqueness to this space and also tackled the large blank space of the wall that always bugged me.
Seeing this room come together was so much fun. My gosh – SO much fun. I didn’t feel guilty spending money because we worked REALLY dang hard to save it amidst other projects and “life happenings”.
We love to be in this space as a family but also have loved having friends and family enjoy this space as well. Hospitality is at the core of who I am; Practicing it makes me joyful. Like that deep down kind of joyful. My dear friend Kara Beth gave me the ultimate compliment after a recent baby shower when she said that my home felt lovely in both look and feel. Ah – that’s exactly what I strive to achieve.
This area is absolutely the heart of our home and where we do so much life with people who are important to us, so having it finally function the way I always envisioned is flat-out wonderful. My expectations are firmly set that we will love this room and live in it just the way it is for many years to come. And if we move again, this furniture and general decor will have to work, because that was the deal. We will get our money’s worth and love it well without the desire to replace and redo. That’s the goal.
Psst: If you’re doing the math in your head, this room did ultimately cost more than $5k, but anything over $5k was spent with store credit (Pottery Barn) or cash from selling everything that we replaced. Not a dime over $5k ever came out of our account. I told Jamie I would stick to the budget we set together, and I did, even when it was TOUGH. 🙂
Let’s chat!
Do you think I’m totally bananas for buying ivory furniture? 😉
Do you also have Pottery Barn furniture and love it?
Hi! I’m Erica, and I absolutely adore sharing my life on this website with you! I come here almost daily to blab about all of the things related to being a regular wife and mother in today’s ever-evolving society. I share about our new home, what’s on our kitchen table, what we’re hanging in our closets, where we’re traveling to next, my crazy 5 a.m. work outs, how I make time for girlfriends, our faith, and much more. We always have a lot of balls in the air and somewhat thrive on the chaos. I believe in the power of story-telling as a form of inspiration and entertainment, so I’m here to do both! I was born and raised in north Alabama and recently re-planted roots here again after my husband transitioned out of the Army (he is now in the Reserve and it’s going so well!) I’m a super proud mom to three little girls (ages 7, 4, and 1) who seem to be the stars of the show around here (for good reason – they’re pretty great!) I’m so glad you found me and are here reading! I hope we can get to know each other here on the blog as well as Facebook and/or Instagram. xoxo