Hey I'm Lisa and welcome back to my channel in today's video I'm gonna share
with you what is working in my living room and what is not. So we have been
here in my Canning Cabin (as we call it) for just over a year, and we continue to love
this space. It is so bright, it is so beautiful, this is our first full winter
here because we were only here for about a month of winter last year, so it's been
so nice to see the house in all four seasons and my furniture has also seen
all four seasons of children [haha]. So I want to share with you a couple of
things that have been working really well and some things that I maybe would
have done different if I were to do it all over. The first thing I want to talk
about is the shiplap so this was a little bit of a controversy because
people were like "You're putting shiplap in a place that you rent?" i.e. Like I can't
take this home with me when I moved like I'm putting it up it's permanent. And it
was one of the things that I just really intentionally decided that I was going
to invest in because I wanted to make the space my own. We were able to do this
at a cost that was reasonable for me and I just I continue to be so happy with it
I love the texture I love just the ambience it gives my living room and
it's definitely something I do not regret I do not regret for one second
putting up all the beautiful shiplap. On the flip side of that my rug my rug was
not a winner. I like this rug I loved it in the photos
and I like the texture when we first got it. It's that nice sort of large knit
wool, but what I did not realize was how much natural fibers pill. You can see all
these weird like kind of loopy, it basically just looks old and tattered
all the time, and so if I were to do it all again I would probably not have gone
with this rug and I would have gone with something more tightly woven as I've
shared with you here I'm moving to Florida so I'm being really careful
there are certain things that I am willing to invest in because they're
going to increase my quality of life, and then there are certain things that I'm
kind of like, "meh" I can live with it because I know I'm going to be moving
and might want to get something different
I'll be honest with you though, the more I talk about and just thinking about it
here, I think I want to get a new rug and just figure it out because it just... the
texture of this rug is driving me nuts. The second thing I love in my living room
are my navy blue sofas. So we got the Sven sofas from Article. So with Article
you're buying this online and you don't sit on it first. I have never bought a
sofa- not for me, not for a client, not ever- I have never bought a sofa without
sitting on it first, and so I was really mmm just skeptical, I was kind of I
basically read a whole bunch of reviews online to see if you know people
actually liked their sofa and after doing my extensive google search it
seemed that people were pretty satisfied with their sofa, so I was willing to give
it a shot especially because they have a pretty decent return policy. So a couple
things I want to say about these sofas: I love the color and I love the shape. I
love that it's got a little tiny hint of mid-century modern and I love how it
just really, like, has a grand presence in my living room. But what I don't like
about these sofas are two things: number one, and this might be just a unique
thing about my particular house and seven children, but my children tend to
take the back cushions off and build all kinds of forts. And let me tell you I'm
all about supporting creativity and fort-building, however... UGH the cushions have
gotten like such a beating like really they've been really worn so the shape is
kind of weird. I can't decide like is this because it's my house or is this
because of the quality and the structure of the cushion. So I do find that the
long back cushions are kind of like, lumpy in places like I feel like I have
to like move the down around a little bit and I probably could. And then I am
school's out on the color. So I love the navy blue color, I LOVE me
some navy blue. In my 11 years of practicing interior design, clients
would always be like, "I really need to get a dark sofa because it's gonna hide
all the stains." My friends, just because something is a dark color, it doesn't
mean stains they're gonna hide. And so, what I find with this sofa is that it is
a little bit high-maintenance in sense of, if my kids were eating
literally anything (and they're not allowed to eat on the sofa- Canning
children watching this: you're not allowed to eat on the sofa!) but of course
grubby paws, if you don't get to them fast enough, you know they get onto onto
the sofa. So the stains show up real quick. Like, think goldfish crackers
it's orange like that orange, you know, dust shows up really quick on the navy
blue fabric. As well as, I have sippy cups that are spill proof and I will say they
are pretty amazing, like, you can flip them upside down, but sometimes a
little bit of liquid will get out and those stains show up real quick on this
material as well. But what I will say is that this washes up really well. It takes
some commitment, like literally it's taking a little bit of detergent and
diluting with water, and then my muscles, and I'm literally just scrubbing the
stains out but when I do that or if I invest in an upholstery cleaner to come
I could do that also... it does turn out almost brand new. So it's a bit of a
double-edged sword, I would say, with this sofa where the stains show up pretty
significantly but when I get to it with soap and water when I eventually get to
it it kind of comes out looking pretty nice. So all in all, I love these sofas
I love the lines I love how they feel very elegant, I don't love that the
cushions are all detachable, and I don't love that the sofa is so high
maintenance in the sense of stains and washing them out. However, for me because
I really wanted this navy blue color for me it's worth the maintenance. Tell me in
the comments: would you use a navy blue sofa in your living room? Or is navy blue
way too bold of a color for you? A third little tidbit that's changed in my
living room that I'm currently really liking is we actually ended up moving
our television from downstairs to upstairs. Now, normally this is like a
really big no-no for me. Normally I am, like, very anti the TV being in the
main space and I'm anti TV being in the main space because I just find sometimes
it can be really tempting to turn it on all the time to, you know, have it on in
the background, the kids are asking for it more and more... but it's kind of a
funny story. Literally my internet and phone provider came over and was like
it's actually cheaper for you with your plan to get cable. And so literally my
husband was like okay like let's just get cable it's cheaper for our monthly
plan and so when we had it we had to put the cable box upstairs long story short
it was Super Bowl and so we were like well let's just move the TV upstairs and
like watch the Super Bowl. We were having people over it was super fun
Super Bowl was in February and we never moved the TV back downstairs and I will
be super honest with you it's actually been really nice like the kids still
watch their TV shows like after school and we all kind of hang out in this
beautifully lit living room. You know I can be putting away the dishes from
dinner, I can be you know putzing around in my office, I can be tidying up, and
we're still all together. Whereas before, they kind of went downstairs and I was
tidying up dinner and whatnot upstairs so I actually kind of liked that we're a
bit more communal and I'll be honest because I'm really strict about how much
TV we watch it's not really been an issue with it on in the background or
anything so, um, it actually has worked out really well. But I would say that
you've got it like you know if you're the kind of person that wants it on all
the time if it's gonna be challenging for you to have it in the main space and
I have a sort of caution against having it there. Honestly I could go on and on
there's so many things that I really continue to love I love my Ottomans from
Tonic Living, the kids kind of play, like, roller derby on them but I'm okay with
that. I love my pillows, I love some of the accessories, I love the Ottomans the
Ottomans have been whoa I love my Ottomans and you love those tufted Ottomans.
I mean so honestly like I'm feeling pretty happy about how things have also
been wearing over time (and again I get a lot of traffic) so I'm really quite proud
or happy with the decisions that we made if you like this video I would love for
you to give it a big thumbs up and hit the subscribe and
bell and until next time, cheers to designing your beautiful life.