I Painted my Living Room Green + What it Looked Like Before

Y’all have probably seen me post on Instagram the progression of my living room. I’ve especially been on IG stories heavily sharing updates to the space and asking opinions on what project you guys think I should start on next. Y’all know I change my mind a hundred times when it comes to my own projects.

Even though my living room is NOT EVEN CLOSE to being complete (I doubt any room in my home will ever be, LOL), I wanted to share the paint color on the walls, because I’m obsessed! I also realized that I have never shared my living room from when we first bought the house, except when we first did a walk-through. I went live on Instagram when we first went through the house with the real estate agent and then got off to tell her to make an offer, LOL. Our offer was accepted the same day. That was in mid-February and we moved in less than a month later!

Let’s start with some photos of what the house looked like when we moved in (minus the furniture – they all belong to the previous owner).

I know, I know… these photos are terrible. And, it doesn’t help that this room gets very little light, so I had to brighten up the images A LOT. As you can see, my living room (and the rest of my home, as well) is very dated. It’s in amazing shape, though. We’re the third owners of our home and the previous owners took great care of it.

[disclaim]Check out the before and after of my kitchen.[/disclaim]

For some reason, the walls in the living room were three different colors. I don’t have any good photos for proof, but one wall was a minty green color, one wall was a gray, and one color was a different gray with a purple undertone. So, I painted it Behr Marquee’s Park Avenue (which is a really neutral taupe-gray).

Next thing we did when we moved in was the carpet. We replaced it with Pergo Outlast+ Java Scraped Oak laminate floors. They’re beautiful, durable, and so easy to clean.

Like I mentioned before, we don’t have great lighting in the living room, even with the set of French doors leading to the patio, so we got some recessed lighting installed. Y’all know I love dark walls, so with the new lighting came the appeal for a different wall color. I got Garden Gate from Sherwin-Williams for my master bedroom, but since I knew I wouldn’t be really working on that room for another year or two (I just really wanted to change the wall color), I figured the color would be great in my living room. Boy, am I glad I went with it! I love this color!

I removed the Rubbermaid track shelving system from my home office (the same one that I used in my apartment – now I have a different system on the wall in my office), painted it all black and reinstalled it in my living room. I LOVE the look. Now, I can display all the little tchotchkes that I like to hoard, LOL.

I’ve also painted the beams black and gave the ceiling a fresh coat of white paint (after Shawn scraped the popcorn off). It’s hard to see these two updates in any of these photos, but I’ll share more photos in a few weeks.

You guys have probably seen peeks of the green walls when I shared my gallery wall over my dining room table. We actually have a separate dining room, but Shawn will be using it as a man cave **insert huge smile/sign of relief**. I need to work on finding a better table for this space, because I need a rectangular space saver, not this rounded square glass table that I have now. I want to try and maximize this space as much as possible, so I long rectangle table (preferably wood), would give me lots of seating, while not taking up too much space here. These ceiling fans also gotta go and will soon be replaced with a more modern one. I would love to do chandeliers, but we need the ceiling fans, y’all. It gets super hot in New Orleans, and my house does not take the heat very well. When these ceiling fans are off in the summer, it feels like it’s 80 degrees inside, ugh!

The sectional is probably a piece that you haven’t seen, since I recently got it from a client’s yard (she was throwing it out). I already bought 30 yards of fabric to recover it. The fabric is a super soft, soil & stain repellent microfiber in a lighter gray color. The fabric has a very subtle zebra print pattern (very subtle) that I love. I can’t wait to share more!

Another thing that you guys don’t see in these photos is that I threw away the faux wood blinds that were on my french doors and painted the french doors black (Behr’s Limousine Leather – my favorite black). I had actually painted the doors a dark charcoal color after I painted the walls taupe, but the gray didn’t look too good with the green walls. I’ll share some photos of the doors on IG randomly, so make sure you’re following me! You might even see me shopping for new french doors soon, because we want definitely want to get some updated doors. I have a blog post coming up soon sharing some options.

I had Britt, of Britt Smith Photography, come over to take a few photos of my living room (and me in them), because I knew all these before/during photos from my phone were gonna be trash! Plus, she always brings out the color in my projects! I love how moody my walls make my home feel. I’ll share more of the photos she took later.

Next on the agenda for the living room is to finally paint my fireplace (it’s going white) and possibly get a custom mantle made for it. I’ve also bought plenty of art pieces for over the fireplace, but hated them all. Now, I’m going to just make something custom. After I recover the sectional, I’ll be getting a rug and now I’m really, REALLY inspired by Katrina, over at KatrinaBlair.com, and her built-in bookcase that her and her husband built from scratch. A built-in bookcase is on my very long list of things that I would love to do myself, but know I will never finish.

So, here’s the complete(ish) to-do list:

• paint fireplace
• change or paint mantle
• make art for over fireplace
• get new media console or do a built in bookcase that houses TV
• shop for new french doors
• get new rug
• recover sectional sofa
• get some kind of wall art installation for the TV wall (it’s really boring over there)
• add more art to the gallery wall in my dining area
• replace ceiling fans

So, that’s all for now, y’all, make sure you’re following me on IG to keep up with any BTS between my next living room update.

Would you paint your walls green? Let me know below!

Till next time,