The Current State of the Living Room & My New Found Obsession With Automation

*This post is sponsored by Lutron Electronics*

 

Hey hey friends! In light of it being a decade of loving and living in our little bungalow I thought it would be a good idea to have a look at the current state of each room.  This house has changed so much since we moved in and each space has seen many versions of itself over the years as we’ve worked to define what we want them to look and feel like. We all know the motto around here: curating a home is a marathon, not a sprint… and our home has indeed been a very slow marathon of improvement and elevation. We are just about done with all of the interior spaces so let’s have a look at each of them.  I figure we’d start with the true heart of our home…the living room (yup, we are those people in which it’s not the kitchen). But first a little trip down memory lane…

Let’s start with what this space looked like that day we moved in..

She was a little rough around the edges, but she had sooooo much potential.  I saw the original hardwood floors, huge picture window, large original functioning wood burning fireplace and French door, and I just knew with a little work and our personal touch it would be so so good. Since moving in it’s seen several different iterations but I’m really loving what things are looking like right now.

We didn’t do any structural or major changes in this space. Just bathed it in inky black walls, including the ceiling, updated the facade and hearth of the fireplace with paint and marble tiles, added an overhead light, restored the doorbell chimes, refinished the floors and layered in color and texture through furniture, art and decor.  The space is quite small and it’s the only living and gathering space in our house so we really focused on making it incredibly functional and hardworking while also prioritizing beauty and comfort.  Buy once, buy well is my other motto so we took our time to invest in quality pieces that would be long lasting and also very comfortable.

One of the ways we’ve really elevated how we live in here is with the help of automation. We included Caséta smart lighting and Serena Shades, both from Lutron Electronics. Integrating these technologies into the space have been GAME CHANGERS.  We spent the majority of the past 10 years with classic bamboo shades, which was fine, until they weren’t.

After years of lifting them up and down everyday they started to break down and eventually stopped working altogether. We made the switch to smart roller shades and we seriously couldn’t be happier.

I love them so much! They are fully customizable so they fit the unique dimensions of our picture window, and I love how they both look and feel very unobtrusive in the space. When it came to choosing specific shades for the room I wanted something with just a little bit of texture that felt natural and a bit earthy, but that would also work really well with the other colors and elements in the room.  I also wanted to keep it a bit neutral so I ordered several fabric samples and narrowed it down to two before making my final selection.

They were both quite similar, but in the end I chose the Mesa colorway because I really liked the depth of the color. I opted for privacy lining and it provides just the right amount of light filtering during the day if we need and also keeps things nice and private at night. The picture window was a big selling point for us with the house and I love that the Serena smart shades really help keep the focus on the actual features of the window and all the beautiful light that comes through them. They just compliment the windows so perfectly.

We also added Caséta by Lutron smart switches to automate both our exterior front porch light and the interior lamps, which let me just say is truly the best. I never knew I needed these in my life until I had them and now I’m never going back! Coming home to a well lit house when it’s dark out gives me so much peace of mind. Also just having our home wake itself up in the evening when the lamps turn on and put itself to bed late at night when the shades close and the lamps turn off is just so so nice.

One of the more recent additions to this space is the bookcase we put in next to the sofa.  I kept feeling like there was a way to get even more intentional use of out of that corner of the room when it dawned on me that we could fit a narrow floor to ceiling bookcase over there. The art was lovely, but in a small home every inch counts.

We love it and seriously can’t believe we didn’t think to do it sooner.  I found the perfect bookcase lamp for it, but quickly realized the most annoying design flaw when I realized the on/off switch is on the back of it.  This meant having to pull the lamp out every time to operate it. We needed a way around this because, no thank you! I decided to connect it to a Caséta by Lutron lamp dimming smart plug and voila!  No more daily annoyance.

I added both the smart plug and the smart shades to the Lutron app with allows me control everything easily and conveniently. Nowadays I’m all about ease, so adding these features to our home has felt really lovely and calming amongst the busyness of our day to day. I definitely can’t wait to add Caséta by Lutron products to other rooms in the house!

I’m so happy with the way this small, but mighty space has evolved over the years. Am I done tinkering with? Probably not, but for now the heart of our home is looking and feeling great.

Until next time friends…..

Posted By: Shavonda Gardner · In: interiors, small space living, thecottagebungalow