Hi there!
I know I’ve called this post “Changes in the Living Room” as if y’all are well versed with what it looked like before. In actuality, I’ve never shared the entirety of our living room on the blog. Oops.
Let’s be real- blogging, as it turns out, is a lot of work. It’s not so much the picture taking, photo editing, or even post writing. No, it’s the staging. What you see on blogs is a total lie. Remember when I gave you the glimpse of what my house looks like just beyond the lens?
Yeah, that’s why I haven’t shown y’all my living room yet. It’s a near impossibility to get the whole room cleaned and props in place without my children destroying it in the interim. It would be too stressful to even try, so for now you just get to see little pockets of my home at a time. One console table is about all I can handle making pretty and keeping my kids away from in one sitting, so a console table is what you’re seeing today!
Remember when I unexpectedly found and purchased my dream antique church pew? Well when that moved in, the foyer table got the boot. I was actually kind of sad about it because the foyer table was the first piece of furniture I bought specifically for this house. It felt like betrayal.
Luckily, I found the perfect spot for it in my living room. I had an empty wall staring at me after we took the Christmas tree down, and the table fit the space perfectly. As soon as we put it there, the room instantly felt homey. I didn’t realize how much a blank wall affected the feel of the room until it was gone. An empty, sterile void became an enveloping hug. Apparently I like the feeling of pretty things caving in on me while I sit on the couch. It explains the 14 throw pillows.
I kept the styling pretty simple. A thrifted picture, a basket from the Target dollar spot (go see if they have any left- only $3!), and a plant that I temporarily borrowed from my plant wall.
Back to that whole “blogging is a giant lie” thing…
Turns out, photographing a mirror is the wrong thing to do if you are trying to hide the ugly laying just outside the camera lens. Here’s just a few things you may or may not be able to see: there are children’s books scattered everywhere; I keep having to move the candles on the mantle because they are reflecting in the mirror and I only have two candles but four candle holders; the ugly ceiling fan keeps making a surprise appearance in my photos; I stacked pillows up in the background to cover up the giant rusted air return; instead of dusting the console, I just blew the bigger atrocities off onto the floor before shooting; numerous toys had to be moved just to get this slightly pulled back shot:
The more time I’m spending on blogs and Instagram, the more I want to shout, “THIS IS ALL A LIE!”. Probably just to make myself feel better because I don’t want to think I’m the only one who doesn’t have it together in life. I like making my home look pretty in photos precisely because I can’t keep it looking like this normally. I get the fulfillment of knowing what my hard work could look like at it’s full potential, and I immortalize that beast in pictures because it will never look like that again.
Wow, this post took an unexpected turn. It kind of turned into a PSA about the dangers of social media, but I’m gonna go ahead and roll with it in the spirit of authenticity. Bottom line, I’m loving the foyer table turned console table in my living room even if it doesn’t always look magazine worthy. Now I’m gonna go and not scroll through Instagram for a while…
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