Inspiration: A-frame Living Room Before & After

A-frame Living Room Before & After

I can hardly contain myself that A, we have a place to sit in our Palm Springs A-frame cabin and B, I love it so much I think I might like it better than our primary house and C, I can finally share a finished living room today!

When we first bought the place it was dark and very brown, from the carpet all the way up to the coffee-colored painted beams (you’ll see in the before photos below). I knew I wanted to brighten it up but you might remember from my original design post, I was planning to keep the rock un-painted, and I did for about a year. However, as we slowly renovated the house my mind started to change, and then when we painted the rock in the bathroom, I knew I wanted to go all out and paint the stone in the living room as well. What I like best about painting all the different surfaces the same color is that it not only unifies the space but also modernizes it without stripping it of all its’ character. The contrasting textures still show through but in a cleaner and much brighter way.

living room renovation // before & after // sarah sherman samuel

You also might see we have a different sofa from what I originally had chosen. Unfortunately during the year of renovating, stopping and starting while we found different contractors, our brand new beautiful sofa (which was wrapped in plastic to keep out construction dust) became club med for every mouse in the desert. No joke, we had no idea until we finally got to unwrap the sofa after about a year, and it was completely covered in mice droppings with little holes burrowed throughout the material.

After some tears over it being unsalvageable, a couple visits from a pest control company and my falling in love with the Melrose sofa at Clad Home, we now have this gorgeous 10 foot beauty that turned my sofa nightmare into my loungey dream come true. I love the low profile and at 42″ deep it’s extra deep for optimal curling up and cozying into. Also, being white, it’s great that I can unzip the cushions and throw the covers in the wash.

I splurged on the Albini rattan bucket chair so I knew getting the green safari chairs, from my dream design board, weren’t going to happen but luckily for me, a week before I needed to have the place staged for a shoot, I found these green camp style/safari-esque chairs on Urban Outfitters for a more reasonable price. It took me a year from when I put it out in the world that I was on the hunt for green safari chairs but these were worth the wait!

In every project I do, I always like to mix in some vintage and custom pieces when I can and my own spaces are no exception. The nesting side tables (found at the rose bowl flea), the Albini chair I mentioned before (sourced from the Hi-Vibe), and the floor cushion (from The Vintage Rug Shop) are all vintage while the coffee table I had custom made and is a prototype of my own design (which will be available for purchase in my shop soon).

Pieces I love that come from more big-box type stores are sprinkled throughout as well, like the ceramic canister on the coffee table (from target), the vase from CB2, the rug from esalerugs.com, the basket from World Market (that I DIYed a little something to and that I keep forgetting to share about… note to self, I WILL post that how-to soon) and the gorge chandelier from West Elm.

On the other side of the room you can get a peek into the kitchen and see that I took a note from my favorite massage boutique, The Now, and hung a hammock chair above the fireplace as decoration which, bonus, can also easily come off and be put to use outside.

And now for some side-by-side before and afters. We didn’t have to do a lot to this room aside from tearing out the carpeting, installing the tile floor, switching out the lighting, and a whole lot of painting, but it is still satisfying to see, none-the-less.