Coming into November, we welcomed our second winter in Colorado.
We moved to Colorado for the snow. And it does not disappoint. We watched so many snow falls from our little ranch, and skied the best powder and most beautiful mountains we’ve ever seen.
Although beautiful, Colorado’s winter is also cold. With the walls painted white and few furniture pieces, our living space did not feel cozy.
I am not good at decorating. I can make a room sterile-clean, and super organized, but when it comes to making it cozy and inviting, I really struggle.
This is how our living room looked over most of this year. Hanging art helped, but did not make the rooms come alive. 2018 is the year of improving our living space. Before the year ends, I set my mind on making our living room cozy for the winter.
The first order of business was to get a new rug. The green IKEA rug had served us well, but was way too small for this room. The pine flooring we discovered under the decade-old carpet is covered with old paint sprays. Before we have time to refinish the floor, we need a much bigger rug to cover the defects.
Luckily, Slav has much better taste on rugs and is uncharacteristically decisive on his pick. Below are the lucky winners:
The Persian rug for the living room:
The Bohemian rug for Slav’s office:
Ordering rugs online felt risky, but when they came in, we were happy with their quality. The color in person is vibrant and the rugs themselves are plush. We bought the living room rug in 9″ x 12″, and it completely changed how our living room feels.
The dogs love the rugs too. Charlie claimed his spot as soon as we unrolled the living room rug, before Slav even finished vacuuming:
And he stayed on it for the rest of the day.
While Roxie prefers a good chair, Charlie is a always a spreading-out-on-the-floor kind of dog. It is important to us that Charlie enjoys the rug.
I used to shy away from feminine colors and usually stayed with black, white, and grey. But the large area of subtle pink on this rug grounds the room without making it look like a teen’s dorm. I love it.
The second rug now lives in the adjacent room, Slav’s office.
I adore the intense yellow color on this rug. This specific shade of yellow was widely used in old oriental rugs and represents significance and honor, especially when combined with black. This rug brings back so much taste of home.
Do you love it too? It is amazing that pieces this colorful could make a space feel cozy, but not busy.
Besides soft things, I also added a few more plants.
My favorite is this Pothos plant.
It is now hanging in our kitchen with a Macrame plant hanger.
I also acquired some lights and threaded them in between the plants. They created beautiful shadows on the ceiling and are just perfect mood lighting for the room.
Room by room, we’ve been upgrading the ceiling lights. The whole house came with the classic “nipple” lights, and they have been replaced with prettier, brighter, and more efficient LED lighting. But finding the perfect overhead light for this little hallway has been a struggle.
We got this LED warm-light from Costco for a pretty reasonable price. Slav mounted it on in 15 minutes.
It was perfect – it is much shorter and no longer distract the eyes from the painting on the wall. It is also bigger in diameter and fills the space with warm light.
The new living space makes us smile every time we walk into the house. Seeing Roxie and Charlie napping on the new rugs also makes our hearts sing. After all, it is our loved ones that make a house home.
Just like this, we cozy up for winter. We hope you are enjoying the warmest holiday weekend with your family. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
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