I recently shared a tour of our new living room and dining room over in Instagram so if you missed that, go check it out. I’m at @theladylovely_blog and there is a highlights tab with all the new home info.

For our living room, I knew this would be the focal point of our home since it is open concept and so accessible to the kitchen so deliberately put a lot of time and attention into picking out all the pieces for it. I wanted the room to feel cohesive and modern so I stuck with a pretty basic color palate of gray, navy blue, and white for the furniture and black and white for the décor.

When thinking about interior design, cohesiveness and color coordination is incredibly important to making a room flow and seem intentional. Don’t try to do too much in a room, especially in an open room since it can be overwhelming. Pick a theme/colors and stick with them.

Once we found the seating, the coffee tables and end tables came next. I knew I wanted all white furniture (I may regret this once we have kids) and this 3 piece set from Rooms 2 Go fit our requirements perfectly. I like for certain furniture to match, like tables and dressers since it makes a room more complete when things match.

I started by finding our couch and loveseat set since I knew those would be the anchor points of the room and I would design everything else around that. The ones we picked are an overstuffed set from Rooms 2 Go that are incredibly comfortable. They are simple enough to go with a lot of different design styles and could be used with several different color palates.

The rug was one of the most challenging items to find since we wanted to make sure it was the right size, texture, and had the right pattern to go with our floors. We actually found this one on clearance at At Home on a whim so we were very fortunate in that regard. It is one of the most plush rugs I’ve ever felt without being too thick to where it is difficult to clean. It goes well with our floors and creates a nice separation of what is the living room and what is the dining room.

With open concept rooms, it is important to create visual separations between the spaces either by using furniture or a rug like we did to create “rooms.” Though the space is open, we created two separate spaces by using the back of the love seat and the rug to visually space out the living area from the dining room.

The sideboard was another challenging piece to find since the wall it is on is very open and flat and we knew we wanted to hang the TV in that space. We had to find something to help fill in that space that was taller than a traditional media console since most of the ones we saw were too short and would crop the wall awkwardly. This sideboard is from IKEA and fits that space perfectly. We store all our board games and playing cards in the cabinets below so they are easily accessible from the living room.

Our dining room table is also from Rooms 2 Go and has a leaf that can be added to increase the seating from 6 to 8. It is perfect for entertaining and is very simple and understated.

The bar cabinet was a big gamble since we bought that IKEA cabinet without really measuring the space and how far the door swung open, but thankfully it fit and works well in that space. I considered a bar cart for that space, but we have so many different glasses that we needed additional storage, so a bar cabinet was a great solution. I like the preparation space it gives me in the living room so I can prepare drinks for guests while still staying with them in the living room.

I was very nervous about finding artwork for our space since I didn’t want it to be too busy. However, with such an open space, I wanted something to help add texture to a very white room and go with the rest of our furniture. We originally had the Paris map poster in our bedroom at our old place and decided we liked it so much, we wanted to move it into the living room and add a few more cities. At first we thought of hanging five cities, but that was too much so we reduced it to three and I’m happy with the results. The posters are on Etsy and are linked below.

Once we decided on black and white posters, I thought it best to keep the theme going in the rest of the living room and kitchen so we found a beautiful photo of the Brooklyn Bridge on Etsy and got it printed and framed. It fills that large wall perfectly and helps bring some of the living room themes into the dining room.

Overall, I am incredibly happy with how our living and dining areas turned out. We are debating whether or not to paint the large wall the couch is on, but that is still under consideration. What do you think? Should we paint that wall the same blue that is in our master bedroom?