In collaboration with Laurel & Wolf
This post isn’t fashion related but honestly, I’m so excited to write about it. Today I’m sharing a tour of our living room. Yay!
If you follow me on Instagram then maybe you saw the poll I put out on my Stories earlier this week. It asked which post you wanted first: an outfit post on pink sequins or a living room tour. Guess what? 74% of you said you wanted the living room tour first! I have to say I’m really happy most of your chose that because that’s the one I was rooting for, too.
I tried to link everything I possible could at the end of this post so scroll to the bottom to see it all. If something exact wasn’t available, I did my best to find super similar versions!
To give you a little back-story on today’s post…
Matt and I moved into this house a little over 4 years ago. It needed a lot of work and with the help of my dad we redid every single inch of what is now our home today. This was before I started blogging, so there’s no official before and after home tour post on here. Maybe one day I’ll upload some photos and share them in a separate post.
Anyway, we had furniture from our apartment that fit in this house, so we didn’t buy anything new except a dining room table with chairs and a desk for the office. I always kind of felt though, that after all of the time and attention we gave this house fixing it up, that it deserved special furniture that really fit the rooms.
I’ve always loved and longed for my space to look perfectly decorated while still maintaining a home-y feel. I would purchase items in bits and pieces but things never really added up once I got it all home. Over time this kind of happened with our house. I had a vision of what I wanted our space to look like, knew the style I liked, but it never came together. I got sick of always playing catch up on décor and never really felt inspired in our home, so I set out to do something about it, starting with the living room.
Last year we got a new couch because we were sick of the tiny one we had, but then we had a coffee table that didn’t work with the new L-shape. The armchair no longer matched the couch, etc. Around that time, I heard about an online interior design service called Laurel & Wolf and was immediately interested.
They are an interior design company that utilizes designers from around the country to help transform your space, all virtually. Our home is small, and I wasn’t looking to spend truckloads of money on an interior designer for custom finishes or anything like that, just some simple upgrades that fit within our budget. Depending on the package you purchase, your matched designer helps you with everything from creating an inspiration board to set-up/placement instructions.
The company was kind enough to extend two complimentary design packages to me (one of the living room, and one for the office, which is still a work in progress) and this has been one of my favorite collaborations to date because of the end result.
We selected the Classic package for each room and upgraded to a premium designer. After taking a short test, we got matched with our designer, Mary. In order to get started you have to measure your space and draw out a floor plan. This may sound intimidating, but I swear it’s not. It doesn’t have to be to scale, but this is an important part of the design process and helps to ensure your designer plans for the right space. If you’re scared to do this, find an artistic and/or detail-oriented friend and have them do it for you. After you snap some photos of the current set up you can indicate your budget; identify any furniture you want to keep; and even upload a URL to a Pinterest board, if you have one.
It’s a little more legwork on the consumer side than a traditional interior design service, but that’s also how they can help keep the service affordable. To me, it was worth the extra 30 minutes to measure things and take some photos to save what would have probably been thousands of dollars for a traditional designer fee.
Our designer Mary was AMAZING and I felt like I knew her in real life even though we only ever chatted over the Internet and she lives on the opposite side of the country. She was not a robot, but a real, actual person who answered my questions and helped me the entire way. Even from the initial design, Mary understood what I wanted. Using our measurements and photos, she created a virtual mock-up of each room and had me chose what I did and didn’t like about the initial designs. From there, we tweaked tiny things like removing a wall sconce or changing an accent color. At the end of the design, she delivered to us the final package that contained the virtual mock-up, a floor plan and instructions so I knew where to place things, and a shopping list where I could purchase directly from Laurel & Wolf.
I want to say that the whole process took less than 3 weeks, and to me that’s pretty fast! Mary was so nice, understanding, and really “got” my style from the beginning.
It’s taken me months to finally get my act together as I’ve been slowly purchasing key pieces over time, and I didn’t want to share the final room until it looked perfect so that I could be sure to do this company justice. Between saving money, working, traveling, and the holidays, this has taken me a lot longer than I care to admit. Although I was provided with free services, I can honestly say after experiencing the whole process that it is hands down worth the money.
The best part? Laurel & Wolf is giving all of you up to $150 off design packages with code CHARMED that you can use on your own to help you upgrade your space, too! See site for details.
I feel more inspired and less antsy when I’m home because I’m enjoying the space that our designer created. As a homebody, it makes me love our living room even more, but I’m also finding myself more aware of keeping it tidier than I did before. It’s the central room to our home, so I think it’s really important that you love it. I’m really proud of our renovations, and now our furniture enhances them.
I’m still working on our office, where Mary helped me create a gallery wall above my desk. Right now it’s still a dumping ground for extra boxes but I’ll post it as soon as I can! I’m so happy to finally share this; it’s been a long time coming!
2 Responses
Your living room looks incredible! I totally agree that the extra 30 minutes to upload images was worth the savings. I’ve always wanted a space to come to that made me feel zen but it seemed like a lofty goal. This service really makes design approachable. Thanks for sharing and the discount code!!!
Ah yay! I have SO been looking forward to sharing this post. Now that I work from home, it’s really important for me to be in a space that inspires me. I for sure saved thousands of dollars using them. Could not be happier and I’m glad you like it, too!