This post contains affiliate links. The images were provided to me free of charge by JUNIQE.
I'm really glad that I've always been someone who just did everything without thinking too much about it or listening to what other people say. Gut feeling and all that, you might know what I mean. My latest moment when I really celebrated this was swapping rooms in my living room and dining room. I got a lot of feedback that I should ABSOLUTELY leave it as it was. My answer to that: now more than ever! For me it's always been the case that as soon as an idea takes hold in my head, I absolutely want to implement it. And ideally straight away. I could never not test it out, after all, who knows whether it won't be much better afterwards than before? Apart from that, I love change. Of course, it doesn't have to be as serious as swapping rooms. After all, sometimes just a new bed cover or moving a vase from left to right is enough.
In my case, after my trip to New York, I felt inspired to change something in my apartment and that's how the idea of changing rooms came about. Everything came together in my head relatively quickly and I was highly motivated to tackle the project.
In this context, I have to mention that I have always considered myself a very impatient person who wants everything (nice) right away. I don't know if it's because of my age, but I have to revise that a bit. I now take a lot more time to find the right furniture for me. Whereas I used to just buy furniture or decorations to have them nice quickly, I now consciously take more time to find the right furniture or decoration. Because I've learned one thing about myself in the last few years: impulse purchases are usually the pieces that I quickly replace. And so the room swap has been going on for a few weeks, until last week, when I finally made some progress. I was on vacation and finally had time to make some progress. So I rolled up my sleeves and got started!
The very first thing I did was take down the old picture wall and I got a bit of a shock! I had someone put up the picture wall and he really messed it up, so my wall looked like it had been shot through and I had to fill in tons of holes. My wall looked like it had had acne. Sure, I knew that beforehand, but I'm also great at blocking things out haha. Or to put it another way: at that point I already knew that I wanted to paint the wall the same color as the left living room wall and so it didn't bother me that much. Oh, I have to throw something out there: I announced on Instagram that I wanted to paint the wall the same gray-blue and I would say that about 80% of the people who replied to me said that I definitely shouldn't do that because otherwise the room would be far too dark. And I was like: now more than ever!
“Dark paint makes the room seem smaller!” Hands up if you’ve heard that statement multiple times! Ever since my dining room was painted in the shade “Hague Blue” by Farrow&Ball, I’ve become a huge fan of dark colors and would rather revise that statement! The dark paint gave the room a depth that was previously missing. That’s exactly why I wasn’t “afraid” of the second dark wall in my living room. Another reason for the painted wall, in addition to making the holes disappear, was the fact that I had been given beautiful new pictures from JUNIQE free of charge. OMG! I could already see in my mind’s eye how phenomenally cool these pictures would look on the wall! Apart from that, the pictures would also brighten up the wall.
So I started on the paint and within a short time I was standing in front of the painted wall with the biggest grin ever and I was just so happy! I think being in love describes the situation all too well! My gut feeling was definitely right again! The room has become so cozy and you can think I'm crazy if you want, but somehow it looks more grown-up. And yes, I can't deny that the corner where the two painted walls meet is dark. It would be weird if it weren't, but to be honest I expected it to be even darker and I don't think it's bad at all. I simply put my new wall lamp from Hübsch Interior in the corner.
All that was missing were the pictures, which I put together myself on JUNIQE. Since the really large formats have been hanging in my dining room, I really wanted to have the same size as an eye-catcher in my living room. Somehow the pictures on large formats seem even more intense and a little more dramatic. I like it! For a small color accent, I chose an old pink, which is also found in the pictures. My idea was to create a soft contrast with the dark gray of the wall paint with the pink.
1. Tan Kadam Flora – Magnolia, here in a black wooden frame // 2. Peytil Figuratone, here in a black plastic frame // 3. Iris Lehnhardt Brushstrokes 4, here in a black wooden frame // 4. Monika Strigel Black Grass, here in a black plastic frame // 5. Mareike Böhmer Pieces 3, here in a black wooden frame
All images found on www.juniqe.de
All I need to make my living room happy is a carpet and a coffee table. I deliberately gave myself plenty of time to choose the two things. To be honest, I find it really hard to find a nice carpet or coffee table. I've already written a few posts about this and a carpet special will be online soon. But I have the feeling that it won't be long before the two things will move in and round off the room. I just want to say to you once again: do it! If you have an idea of how you can change something in your apartment, just do it! If I don't like the wall color at some point, the worst case scenario is to buy a pot of white paint from the hardware store. I would say there are much worse things.
