My Best Friend Robyn’s Living Room Reveal – We Added So Much Color, Charm, Coziness (And A Lot Of Heirloom Quality Pieces)

If you like friendship romance stories you’ll like this one. Girl-meets-girl in 6th grade and stays best friends through long-distance high school, reuniting as college roommates, ripped apart to spend decades across the country pursuing careers only be reunited, able to live 7 minutes apart and go on long weekly walk and talks. That’s us and this project has been so fun. Today is Robyn’s living room reveal and to be fair Robs is only one of my three best friends – all of which were huge factors in moving back to Portland, and helping them love their homes more has been one of the joys of this job. While she lives close it still took a year to squeeze in during all our other projects so I hope you agree it was worth the wait.

A quick recap: Robyn and Ryan bought the house last summer and these before shots were when they had just moved in. It’s such a beautiful house, and they were ready to upgrade from their 15-year-old starter furniture but were paralyzed on where to start, and like most people, really didn’t want to get it wrong. The previous owners had stripped the house of color (or maybe just painted it a neutral to sell). So we needed to A. replace almost all the furniture with more high quality “grown-up” furniture (i.e. heirloom quality where possible) and B. add color, coziness, and charm – The three C trifecta that so many people (myself included) want in their home. And a year later, here is how it turned out 🙂

We are collectively pretty darn thrilled with it all – it’s so layered and warm, and yet still works functionally so well for their family (two teen boys and a dog) as both a living room and TV-watching room. We also have a video tour of the space below (just wait for the ad to play):

We grounded the living room with this beautiful Persian-inspired rug from Rejuvenation that pulled together all of our colors (and is just so durable and forgiving). The coffee table, another RJ heirloom is so gorgeous and solid. We knew we wanted a reading corner and I ended up finding this chair online that checked all our boxes – really comfy, affordable, roll-armed but not too granny, and green velvet – which Ryan loves – GO DUCKS! We custom-made the ottoman because we couldn’t find what we wanted on the market, and it’s honestly the first thing you see (so we don’t want to throw in a pouf or something basic).

Sofa | Green Chair | Ottoman (Custom) | Swivel Chairs | Coffee Table | Rug | Curtain Rod | Velvet Curtains | Sheer Curtains| Flush Mount

We worked really closely with Rejuvenation on this space because I had some of their brand new furniture from our partnership that needed a home and I thought that Robyn and Ryan’s was that perfect fit for their entire vibe (and all Portland-based which we love – Rejuvenation is an institution here and has so much Portland loyalty). The layout was pretty darn intuitive since this is their living room/family room and TV room (they have a basement TV room for the boys but it’s not done yet). So we put the sofa facing the TV and swivel chairs that can also face the TV (or one person can put feet up on the other one to lounge) and a cozy chair and ottoman in the corner.

I’m extremely envious of this color palette – so rich and yet cozy and casual. These jewel tones are so pretty and are so grounded by all the wood and leather. Add that deep dark blue on the fireplace and boy does it feel balanced (very much tooting horn here, which I don’t always do but we are OBSESSED with this room and it turned out so much better than expected so I’m pleased as punch writing this).

The Lighting

Green Chair | Ottoman (Custom) | Floor Task Lamp | Side Table | Pillow | Throw Blanket | Sconces | Frame TV | Coffee Table | Rug

Once again I was so grateful for Rejuvenation’s customization ability. We chose unlacquered brass finishes for all four hard-wired fixtures, knowing that it will age so nicely with this older home. We didn’t want to move the J-boxes above the fireplace but they were pretty high so we chose these sconces that hang down a bit (and the directional light on a dimmer is nice not to blind you while watching TV). The flush mount is so simple and pretty.

They are classic and modern and look very high-end and original to the house (plus work so well with the dining chandelier which you’ll see later).

I know that Rejuvenation rugs are investments for sure, but man are they forever pieces and like all high-quality Persian knotted rugs, just hide everything so well. So with two boys + a lot of their friends, a ton of foot traffic + a dog, Robyn and Ryan have ZERO stress about wear and tear on this rug, which is a real gift. And the color palette of this one is really gorgeous.

The Window Treatment Saga

Ready to nerd out? No project goes unscathed from annoyance and figuring out the window treatments here was the biggest issue so imma go off for a bit. They had cheap shutters and they liked the function of them (can easily angle for privacy during the day while still getting natural light coming through the slats). They were a hard no for me but telling my friends they needed to spend $3k on custom window treatments felt wrong when they liked what they had. They also didn’t want five Roman shades that would have to go up and down every day – up when they wanted light, down when they wanted privacy from the street walking traffic. They wanted light and a privacy filter, which the shutters gave them. I felt that this wall needed floor-to-ceiling curtains to add the coziness, so layering curtains with shades is doable…but custom fabric Roman shades are so expensive and this house is too traditional to do a roller shade, and a wooden or natural shade felt too beachy/boho for them (but I could have made it work). We went round and round and I just wanted to snap my fingers. Now I’m sure there are other solutions for this, but two weeks before when we thought we were going to shoot I just made the call to do sheers layered with heavier curtains and use a double curtain rod on the main street-facing window – a move I haven’t done in a while and frankly didn’t feel confident about, stylistically (if done wrong it can look dated, TBH). But it just made sense functionally and I knew we could execute in time with readymade curtains and rods. This way they can easily pull the sheers open and closed (or just leave them closed since they let so much light through) but they are flanked by more substantial curtains (which is great for summertime evening TV watching since this room faces west and gets blasted). We used four sheers and four panels, two on each side, and Robyn’s mom is going to sew them together at some point (but we didn’t for the shoot). But that’s not where the saga ends. The rods were drilled and installed as high as possible because I was supposed to order 96″ curtains, and then hemmed to the perfect float length. But I ordered the wrong length of curtains and when we held up the 84″ ones we realized that if we used clips with rings they would actually just barely float off the floor (my preference). I usually prefer S hooks which hang close to the rod. The clips added the extra 2″ in length that we needed to not have to hem at all. This felt like BY FAR the easiest and best solution (and I was so over troubleshooting these things), plus the rings slide so fast making them super easy to pull open and closed all day. IT WORKED THANK GOD AND IT STILL LOOKS GOOD!!!

But what about the shorter windows??? Right. Everything is a thing. Well as you can see below, we took the same curtains (ordered their shortest version) and DIY’d them via hemming tape into cafe curtains. We treated the hardware the same (except no sheers so just a single rod) and used the same rings/clips. The rods are from West Elm and unfortunately don’t come with the finials (they say they do, but they don’t when you read the fine print and they never arrived) and you can’t order the finials separately (we were on with customer service for a LONG TIME and even they couldn’t figure it out what the deal was). So we bought the finials on Amazon at the last minute – just a heads up. Why didn’t we order from RJ? Because we thought we were going to shoot in November and they were on backorder but we ended up shoving the shoot til January due to holiday overwhelm. SO THAT IS MY WINDOW TREATMENT TED TALK THAT I WOULD NEVER SIT THROUGH. But look how good they turned out!!

Gold Frames | Blue Footed Bowls

The curtains actually really soften the space and the color and the fabric really balances out the intensity of the dark blue shelving. It is honestly such a win. (Shout out to Gretch for her meticulous hemming tape skills). I love the rosy tones of the curtains, with the more deep aubergine of the pouf and all the blues and greens – it’s my new favorite color palette.

Bookcase Paint Color | Vase | Wooden Candelabra | Ruffled Candelabra (no longer available)

Robyn and Ryan already had all these vintage dark red books and were an inspiration to bring in more of that so we have punches of this deep red/brick throughout the space.

The Pretty Leather Sofa

The leather sofa from Rejuvenation is such a classic, feels so “library” and is extremely comfortable. The leather was scratching easily so the first year of ownership is hard emotionally if that bothers you, but the patina really comes alive and it gets better every year. The tufts with the modern curve are so pretty.

The Picture Molding Gallery Wall

Green Pillow | Small Blue Lumbar Pillow | Square Blue Pillow | Rosewood Velvet Pillow | Throw Blanket | Vase | Red Marble Tray

I wrote a full post about how we hung this gallery wall on these art rods (my new favorite trick – SO EASY if you have picture molding but still doable if you don’t) so check it out here if you are interested. We collected all the vintage art from local antique stores (except for one – can you spot it??)

Left: Side Table | Table Lamp | Right: Side Table | Marble Fluted Tray

We incorporated a lot of pretty wood side tables and brass lamps throughout – all so high quality and perfectly curated. Rejuvenation’s quality is just superb and I feel confident that they’ll have them forever and pass these down to their kids.

Clyde, their perfect dog is really nailing these makeovers (he was also the star of their former basement makeover, seen here). Quite possibly the perfect tones of browns and reds in his fur 🙂

Here are a couple of before and afters:)

I know that are dying to see the dining room and I can’t wait to show you, but I will because this post is already too long. So here is a sneak peek of it but please come back and get the full tour – Kaitlin’s photos are just so pretty and we set it all up for a meal which we don’t do that often. It’s such a homey and elegant dining room with an epic view of Mount Hood:)

*Design by Emily Henderson
**Photos by Kaitlin Green