One Room challenge: The living room reveal

Hello everyone! I am excited to be here today for the grand finale of the Spring 2016 One Room Challenge, hosted by Linda of Calling It Home.  Welcome to our little white cottage!

I've been decorating and redecorating our little white cottage ever since we moved in, two years ago. Our small living room had been through a lot of changes ever since; not to mention the amount of furniture arranging and rearranging, colors and styles it has seen in those few years. The photograph below is how our living room looked like on that first week of our little challenge... You can click HERE if you want to see more of the BEFORE pictures...

And this is how our small living room looks now after the transformation...  

I wanted to create a contemporary, yet sophisticated space.  I started off with a simple color scheme of white and black to guide me in my choices.  After that, everything else fell in place.  From the area rug to accessories to wall art and paint. It was the best way to ensure a cohesive space that conveyed the look and feel I was after.    

A palette of white and black is such a charismatic style... 

AND it is also timeless elegance!

All furniture remained the same.  I just rearranged them
and brought in tons of decorative pillows

I love the mixture of geometric and graphic patterns, and was not shy adding them all around... from the bold black and white decorative pillows, to picture frames to lamp shades and accessories...   

One can never go wrong when mixing patters.  

The key is to vary the scale, from small to large, of the patterns.

A white and black palette can seem minimalist or even cold, but it really isn't... I love that this high-contrast combination added instant sophistication and drama to our humble little cottage...
  

An antique thrift-store mirror embellished the wall over the mantel.  A few items decorate it: A couple of large white vases from Target, gold candelabras from TJ Max, old books and a cute vintage bottle embellished with jewelry and rhinestones, holding some white spray-painted branches from the trees in our backyard.  

I peppered my black and white palette with an obvious sprinkling of warm metallic. I like how the few pieces in metallic gold add glamour to the room without being too loud or overpowering it.  This thrift store pheasant ornament was originally dark wood.  I spray-painted it in gold to match the decor...

The square mirror on the left wall is from Pier 1

I covered a large book with some cheetah print scrapbooking paper 

and placed a geometric black and white dish holding a house plant on top. 

The bleached-white 106" Lenda curtains with tie-backs and cheer panels are from Ikea. The metallic large vases, from Ross.  I also added some more books as part of the accessories, and covered them in white and black geometric fabric and wrapping paper.

I then upholstered a small clay flowerpot with adhesive shelf liner and painted the trim with DecoArt Americana Acrylic paint in gold, using a small brush and my fingers...   

  Decorative pillows are from Ikea, Target and Ross.
A few more house plants as accents...

Here's that same chair now covered with a white slipcover for a warmer, winter look... 

For the largest and main wall on this room, I wanted some big statement art that could create a dynamic focal point and pull the eye to it the moment people entered the room.  But big pieces of art come with big price tags.  What I did?  I turned an interesting piece of fabric into an artwork!  The result: Some inexpensive, professional-looking wall hanging! Exactly what I was envisioning! 

Nothing makes a room look frumpy quite like a lonely, undersized print floating in a big expanse of white wall...  and nothing makes a better statement like a big, bold piece of art!  And this project was so easy to make.  I could have used a large canvas or a piece of wood to glue the fabric onto, but because I am lazy, I opted to glue the fabric directly onto the wall.  For this, I used liquid starch and then I added molding around the fabric to create a frame. Bam — instant oversized artwork!

Looking down onto the room...

I'm still amazed when I walk in the room and see what a major impact that large tree art alone made in the space!

The PS MASKROS Pendant lamp on ceiling is also from Ikea.  I love the flowery design it creates on walls and ceilings when lighted up...  and here is that room with a pop of color on a decorative pillow and flowers in large white vase!

White chair slipcover from Target

And that's it!  What do you think? 

Stop by Calling it Home today to see other fantastic reveals. 

Thanks for following along! 

PS:  Our living room had been featured on SHUTTERFLY. You're welcome to visit us there!