When You Inherit a Green Couch with an Orange Shag Carpet…Make it work

We have all been there at some-point in our lives, if you haven’t then count yourself lucky. Whether you are just starting out, or just starting over sometimes you don’t have the luxury of choosing your furnishings. I’m talking about those occasions where you end up with someone else’s hand-me-down furnishings. What would you do if you inherited a shag orange carpet and a green couch and throwing them out isn’t an option?

Here is what I think…if you have no other choices, then you might as well embrace it. Think creatively about the elements you have and what they bring to mind. What you are doing when you go through this mental exercise is that you are developing a theme for your room...A theme that is based on your experiences and interests. So, for example…when I think of green and orange together I think Florida Gators....the IZOD alligators on polo shirts…Paul Gauguin and his visions of Tahiti…or even early 1970’s (anyone remember harvest golds and avocado greens?).

Let’s go with my personal favorite of the themes I thought of a moment ago…Paul Gauguin/Tahiti. I would probably pick up a poster print of Paul Gauguin’s “Deux Thaitiennes Accroupiees” and at first just frame it with an inexpensive poster frame. Later I when I have the spare change I might invest in having it professionally matted and framed.

Then I would pick up some orange and white Hawaiian print fabric and some foam pillow forms from either e-bay or the local arts and crafts store and make some pillows (really it is not that hard – you can even hand sew them).  On another wall (because most rooms have four walls) I might do a montage with a sisal welcome mat with some flip flops glued to it.  Perhaps I could mount an accompanying a boogie board (I can’t surf but I can boogie board) next to it and oh and while I am at it I might just hang a Hawaiian lei off it too.

Hmmm...I could get a few silk palm plants of various heights and flank my "Homage to Tahiti" montage I just created by placing them in the corners of my room (place an up-light behind them for visual interest). Put some bamboo roman shades on the windows and my room is starting to come together as I add design elements that pertain to my theme.  It’s not difficult once you start associating colors with your interests and experiences. Go ahead, give it a try…

Design a room that is uniquely you!

Don’t forget the walls

Living rooms/Family rooms are aptly named; no other room in the house gets as much “face time” as a living room. These rooms (generally equipped with conformable seating arrangements, a TV, and audio system) are designed to entertain guests, watch movies or your favorite TV shows, perhaps play games with the family or simply hang out with the family and relax.

Many an hour and dollar are invested in picking out the perfect entertainment system, comfy furniture for these rooms, but sometimes you can forget an important feature…your walls.

Walls should do more than define the confines of a space; they deserve to be the space where you express yourself. Are you an antique lover? Consider one family I know that loved to spend their weekends visiting antique shops and picking up old farm implements because it reminded them of their roots. These antiques were prominently displayed in groupings on each of the walls of their living rooms. Focus was brought to each of the groupings by artfully placing rough sawn oak paneling in-between the displays. When this family entertained, guests invariably had a comment or question about the antiques, and thus a lively and fascinating conversation would ensue.

Another you can think about walls beyond the background of your room is to express a theme for a room on the walls. In the picture below, the owner of this room decided to express her love of travel. The long 17 foot wall was the perfect canvas to express her homage to places she had been and places she planned on going. A trip to the local arts and crafts store resulted in a procurement of 8 posters featuring vistas of Ireland; Sydney, Australia; Venice, Italy; Athens, Greece; Paris, France; San Francisco, California; New York, New York; and even the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. Inexpensive poster frames were bought and within an hour the long blank wall was transformed. 

Are your walls a blank canvas with too much white space or have you painted an intriguing picture for your guests contemplate?

Exactly what is the coffee table for… Coffee, Tea, or Me?

Coffee tables are the nemeses of living rooms. Please don’t get me wrong…I am a self proclaimed coffee snob and I am sure our local Starbucks most likely survives upon my clan’s weekly procurement of "Sumatra" beans…but I do not…cannot abide the coffee table.


I love coffee, the thick Mississippi Mud variation of the brew is my favorite way to have it. My coffee is my best friend in the morning, with its smoky tendrils of steam wafting up my nose it politely but sternly tells me to stop hitting the snooze button and get on with my day. It also greets me in the evening after a long day at work and reminds me that one job has ended and another now must begin…coffee pulls me through the dinner preparations, the homework checking, and the endless errands and promises to keep that are miles to go before I sleep.

So why do I detest the coffee table? Coffee tables are the black holes of living spaces, with their insatiable desire to collect veritable mountains of discarded magazines, pizza boxes, and vessels half full of some sort of liquid (but generally not coffee). This is their every day purpose, they only get dressed up when company is coming over and even then they are concealed with the artful coffee table book. I mean, really does anyone actually come over to your house and say… “Oh, what a lovely coffee table?”

I think not!

Have you ever noticed how the inherent height of a coffee table is perfectly proportioned to take a bite out of your shin as you maneuver around it to sit down at the sofa? Its corners are also magnificently fashioned to create those sexy intriguing white lightening scars you occasionally see in rugged men’s eyebrows. Oh, those men may tell you that the origins of the scar was a particularly bad bar-fight (which I am sure they said they won), but odds are…they were just learning to walk as a babe and the nefarious coffee table could not resist.

So why do so many people have coffee tables? Do they feel it helps center a room as a focal point? Is it a convenient place to eat dinner while watching TV? Does it serve as an adjunct library for the bathroom down the hall? Or was it simply because it was part of the living room suite you had to have at the local furniture store?

Leave a comment and tell me why you have a coffee table, this inquiring mind wants to know.