We recently moved into an old shotgun-style house in the middle of the city. It’s a temporary move, but one that has completely altered my idea of “dream home.”
Before, I would have given my right leg to trade my two-story colonial for a historic home. It’s cliche, but I thought age equals character. However, we’re just a few weeks into this adventure and I am surprisingly missing my previous open, sunlight-filled home.
I have to be honest: I’ve been spending an embarrassingly large amount of time daydreaming about what it will be like when we move back to the ‘burbs and into another two-story, spacious space.
To aid in my frequent home-related fantasies, I decided to take a swing at designing my idea living room from top to bottom using the Oak Haven Living Room Virtual Room on House Tipster.
Floor-to-Ceiling Windows? You Had Me at Floor…
The most evident feature of the Oak Haven Living Room is the floor to ceiling windows. Upon closer look, these are French Doors that lead out to what appears to be a terrace. Where’s the dotted line? I’m ready to sign!
All kidding aside, this Virtual Room has everything I’m looking for in a living room right off the bat so I jumped right in and started customizing.
Designing My Room Around the Paint
Paint matters to me. A lot! In fact, I’ve been known to decorate a whole room based on the paint color on the walls.
I decided to start the personalization process by selecting a paint. Blue always seems to work well in living spaces because it’s an inviting color, so that narrowed down my Behr Premium Paint options. Icicles, which is partly blue-gray, looked beautiful next to all those windows/doors, but River Veil resembled a clear blue sky. It didn’t take me long to settle on River Veil.
Stone Walls
Oak Haven has a really unique feature that I was interested in learning more about: stone accent walls. I had never thought about installing floor-to-ceiling natural stone in a living room, but it appears to be a totally fabulous aspect of this room.
Because I’m designing the entire room around that beautiful River Veil paint, I wanted to find a stone that had some gray/blue in it. The Siena Beige Granite was the stone that initially appealed to me, but it may have too much burgundy accents and I didn’t want it to darken the room at all. Therefore, I switched over to the “Limestone” option and immediately fell head-over-heels for Jerusalem Grey.
Hardwoods
After the walls, I decided to tackle the floors. There’s no doubt in my mind that my next living room is going to have brand new hardwoods, but I never realized how many color options there are. I appreciated the Old Bronze finish that auto-populates on this Virtual Room, but it’s just too brown against all the blues I’ve chosen thus far. Smoke, on the other hand, is obviously darker but it has a great look contrasted with the Limestone and paint.
Putting It All Together
In all, 10 different aspects of the room from the floor to the ceiling and everything in between are customizable, all the way down to the picture frames and wool throw, allowing for thousands of different combinations.
I slowly made my way down the dropdown box to complete the room, starting with the accent wall box lights. Again, I went with a blue/gray hue and selected the Graphite Wall Sconce.
The Tweed Ivory Himalayan Wood and Silk option was the apparent choice for area rug because the hardwoods I chose were so dark to begin with. Plus, the combo of wood and silk on my barefeet sounds divine!
The curtains that originally showed up in the Virtual Room are definitely my cup of tea, but there were actually over 100 options to choose from which made it hard to settle. However, it didn’t take long for me to find the Medici Fabric Mulberry and I was sold.
Finally, it was time to choose a sofa. I changed the option from “Leather” to “Fabric” and quickly laid my eyes on Arley Ruby. Yes, I know I shouldn’t have gone completely monochrome, but this sofa called to me so much that I’m ready to buy it now!
After 15 minutes, I had designed a beautiful living room that I hope to have someday soon. Until then, I’ll keep on using these Virtual Rooms to help keep my inner interior designer “in-the-know” on the latest trends and products on the market.
Sometimes, even when a remodel or even a small refresh isn’t in the works, it’s nice to simply play around to find new styles, colors, furniture, layouts, and other design elements that may work for me in the future. If you’re anything like me, then I bet you’ll find these Virtual Rooms just as useful for your own space.
Have you used the Oak Haven Virtual Room? What was your experience like?
