Before & After: A Small Victorian Living Room Gets an Apartment Therapy Makeover

Ashley Poskin lives in a beautiful old Victorian house in Sterling, Illinois — a small town west of Chicago — which she is also restoring. The house is large, and Ashley and her husband are actually human, so it’s taken awhile to work on each room and make it into a home. (That’s her boxer Charlie front and center, checking out her small living room that’s still pretty devoid of decor and furniture.) Because Apartment Therapy can’t resist an empty room, we descended upon her small town last month and tackled that blank space for her.

I’ll begin by saying that the room itself is absolutely gorgeous, with a towering 12 ft. ceiling, marble fireplace, and hardwood floors. Over the course of a couple of days we turned the all-white room into a modern and colorful space that’s fun to be in, and just made us all….happy.

And here’s the fun part. Now we’re going to break the decorating process down for you. Starting this week, we’re launching Apartment Therapy Design School, which will take you through the process of putting an entire room together, from beginning to end. It’s a mini 1-week course of 13 lessons and we’ll use this room as a case study of sorts to illustrate different concepts. Yay, right?

Here’s the wide view, where you can see all of the room at once. We shopped almost entirely online, and found lots of fun stuff to work with. That fantastic loveseat, for starters, is the Murphy sofa in Burgundy Vance from Room & Board. Both the white side table, and the clear acrylic table, are from Wayfair. As is the large Surya pouf near the window.

There’s the killer fireplace with colorful collage from Saint Louis artist Alicia LaChance hanging above the mantel (and flanked by IKEA BLOMSTER candlesticks). In the corner is an Adesso Nelson Arm Floor Lamp from Wayfair. The chair is from Home Goods, and the throw blanket came from West Elm.

A set of really tall wooden bookshelves from Crate & Barrel are filled with books and accessories — some new, some vintage. Woodworker Collin Garrity gave us a series of wooden vases (with pink flowers above) and the small wooden boxes on the coffee table (below).

We used two rugs layered on top of each other. The bottom pink one is by Surya and is available at Wayfair. It’s joined by a smaller Moroccan-style shag rug from West Elm.

The amazing removable(!) Andanza wallpaper, that we are all now in love with and want on all our walls, is from Hygge & West. The mint green grasshopper lamp is from Crate & Barrel, and the round wooden STABEKK mirror is all IKEA.

Peeking out from the corner is Crate & Barrel’s Noir Bart Cart, which fit perfectly in the little nook to the right of the mantel. You can just make out Ashley’s double pocket doors, which lead to (yet another) living room in the house. I know, right?

So, there you have it. Our first full makeover for Apartment Therapy! Please be sure to follow along with Design School lessons this week, and save for later!

MAKEOVER RESOURCES:

• Murphy Loveseat Sofa in Burgundy Vance from Room & Board
• Andanza Wallpaper in Blush from Hygge & West
• Mick Mint Floor Lamp from Crate & Barrel
• Coffee Table from Urban Outfitters
• Aqua Upholstered Chair from Home Goods
• Collage by St. Louis Artist Alicia LaChance
• STABEKK mirror from IKEA
• Wood Branch Side Table from Home Goods
• Pink Savafieh Rug from Wayfair
• Taza Wool Shag Rug from West Elm
• White Sunpan Modern Rocco End Table from Wayfair
• Acrylic Side Table from Wayfair
• Beckett 5-High Shelf from Crate & Barrel
• Adesso Nelson Arm Floor Lamp from Wayfair
• Noir Bar Cart from Crate & Barrel
• White BLOMSTER Candlesticks from IKEA
• Wooden Accessories from Collin Garrity

Re-edited from a post originally published 10.12.15-NT