Eco Decorating: Living Room Tour

I guess this is Mom tribute week here on the blog! Today I have the fun of sharing the living room in my parent’s home, which my mother recently renovated and redecorated. As an environmentalist and someone who always lives her beliefs, she did so using healthy and sustainable materials.

Her style centers on light colors based on nature, tone-on-tone color palettes, and a lot of vintage finds. She uses a lot of natural wood and plants, which add life, shape, and contrast to the light colors to kick the rooms from sweet to awesome.

The center of any good living room is of course the couch. Hers is a sectional from Lee Industries, who make sustainable and environmentally friendly furniture. It is made without added flame retardants, which have all sorts of health dangers and are actually dangerous for firefighters, too. She had it upholstered in a fabric made from organic cotton and bamboo, which is generally more durable than the other sustainable choices, like linen or cotton alone.

It is a beautiful fabric with several shades of green, and is the piece which defined the color palette for the room.

The green wall color is custom (mixed not by a decorator, but by my mom trying and combining shade after shade until it was perfect), and lifts a one of the light shades from the sectional fabric.  It was painted in Benjamin Moore’s Natura line, which is green and no-VOC.

A lot of people might use a rug to tie the seating area together, but that complication would be totally missing the entire point of this living room (and entire house), which is this little creature:

Honey is my parent’s havanese and constant companion.  This room is as much hers as theirs. She has her own dedicated seat on the couch, perched atop one of the back cushions.

This provides the perfect vantage point from which to keep a close eye on the activity of all the rabbits who frequent the back yard at dusk.

Instead of a rug, the seating area is held together by a substantial, weathered coffee table.

This actually used to be a small farmhouse style table, and so was a lot higher, but had its legs chopped off to be coffee table height.  My mom kept the beautiful weathered finish, which stands up well to guests and regular use.  This is not a “fussy” room!

The table also features a collection of acorns, bark, and leaves, which she collects on her long walks with the dogs (they also have another, a papillon named Inara) and brings back to identify.  There is apparently a lot of time to look around and think about trees while the dogs sniff everything and anything.

And there is, of course, a television suitable to watch the Patriots on (my Dad lives here, too). The small TV stand was a find from a local consignment store.

It is flanked by a truly majestic fiddle leaf fig. My mom is a genius with houseplants. She bought this as a much smaller plant, and has since needed to chop the top off several times to stop it from growing into the ceiling.

The shades on the french doors and windows are made by Earthshade, a small company specializing in good quality, green window coverings.  They sell very low-emitting roller shades (they say the lowest emitting in the world), chemical-free roman shades, and un-coated, recycled mini-blinds.

The other side of the room is the dogs’ bedroom, play area, and storage for books and plants.

She has had these extraordinary glass covered bookshelves for a long time, and I totally covet them. I LOVE the look of books shoved casually behind glass.

They are casual, old-timey, and organized, all at the same time.  And they have these great little brass details.

Over it are three of the five antique paintings which my parents found by combing flea markets and thrift stores (the other two are over the sectional).  They all feature New England landscapes.

The beautiful light in this space is an antique fixture, restored by Rejuvenation and fitted with an LED bulb.  Isn’t that shape amazing!?

Of course, like every room of the house, we have an explosion of plants.  She sets them on an assortment of vintage and antique side tables scored from thrift stores and flea markets.

The tables don’t match, but they share a similar wood tone and swooping shape which ties them together in an eclectic way.

And of course this space has to work for the pups!  Her love of reuse and dogs comes together in this antique ceramic washbasin used for toy storage. I was with her when she found it and thought the idea was absolutely crazy, but it totally works so well!

It holds a ton of toys (these are lucky dogs) and is low enough that they are able to go over and grab the ones they want without any help.

Also, can we talk about this flooring? I don’t mean to brag, but my parents are total hipsters… or at least, they were making things out of salvaged pallets before it was cool.

I’ll go into more detail in a future post, but this floor was put in nearly 20 years ago after being remade from old shipping pallets, and then refinished about 5 years ago. It features old nail holes and other imperfections that make it really special.

I’m so blown away by what my mom pulled off in decorating this room!  I could probably talk for another thousand words about it, and I know I could talk for many more posts about this house.  I’ll definitely share some of the other great spaces and eco solutions in the future!

(Sharing at Tip Me Tuesday, Think and Make Thursday, Your Turn to Shine, August Before and After, Link Party Palooza, One Project at a Time, Remodelaholic, and Two Uses Tuesday.)