Room of the Day: Living Room Decor Marries a Couple’s Individual Tastes

It was time to start fresh. When they bought their first home together, this Atlanta couple was working with their combined throwaway furniture that dated back to college. Struggling with how to choose and arrange new furniture and accessories that suited them both, they realized they needed to enlist a pro. Having met Chicago interior designer Brooke Lang via social media years earlier, they contacted her to see if she could take them on as remote clients. “She told me they really needed my help and didn’t know how to put everything together,” Lang says. Working virtually, she got to know her clients’ individual tastes and helped them find their style as a couple.

Photos by Allen Cooley

Living Room at a Glance

What happens here: A young family reads, socializes, works, plays and watches TV

Location: Atlanta

Size: 250 square feet (23.2 square meters)

Designer: Brooke Lang

The living room in the couple’s new bungalow was essentially a blank slate, minus the wall paint and dark wood floors. “She is really into soft neutrals and a style with a sophisticated Southern charm,” Lang says. “He was into more modern materials like clean woods and metals. Also, she works from home and needed a comfortable place to work as well as a place where she could host clients.”

The design began with a sofa. He wanted a low sectional, while she wanted something tufted. “A tufted sectional isn’t common, but we found one,” Lang says. She had the light-colored piece treated for stains since the couple has a 2-year-old son.

“We went with a gray linen on the chairs to anchor the fireplace and add some darker color to all of that light,” Lang says. The chairs have the clean modern lines he loves as well as metallic nailheads.

A glinting metal étagère also adds a modern touch. The designer put a basket on the bottom to house the TV components that the chair helps conceal. “They love to travel, so this piece adds a vertical place for displaying their mementos from their trips,” she says. The carved wooden stool-side table adds a textured and warm global touch.

The designer also helped them find the framed art piece. “I thought it would be nice to add some greenery, which we did with the fiddleleaf fig tree and some more subtle green through this piece,” she says.

Sofa and armchairs: TOV Furniture; Mongolian lamb pillows: Ava Fluff and Stuff; carved table: Cost Plus World Market; artwork: Z Gallerie

Behind the sofa you can see the main entry door. The wingback chair beyond is an end chair in the adjacent dining room. Lang also designed that room and was careful to make sure the two rooms worked together.

The overdyed antique rug brings in blues and purples. “We’d already chosen a purple hue for the dining room side chairs, and this rug picks up on that,” she says. “It’s a really wonderful rug; the colors change with the light throughout different times of day.”

The sofa table not only gave them somewhere to place two glass-and-metal reading lamps, but also provides an entry landing zone for keys and mail next to the front door.

Lamps: HomeGoods

In addition to the rug picking up on the lavender side chairs, the tufted cream end chairs and fiddleleaf fig tree tie the dining room and living room together. Lang also used the same oatmeal window treatments in both rooms. The chandelier is sophisticated but keeps a simple and modern profile. It’s official — the couple has found their style.

Source: houzz