An Easy and Inexpensive Way to Change the Look of Your Living Room (in Minutes!)

Love this beautiful living room refresh-- especially the flexibility of the IKEA EKTORP sofa and chair with the interchangeable covers! I need these in our house! Click through to the post to see how she does it!

A huge thanks to IKEA for sponsoring and providing product for this post! My favorable opinion of amazing home decor products is 100% my own. ? For more information, see my disclosures here.

I finally spilled the beans last week and let you all in on the news we’ve been keeping secret for a while– we’re moving! But as we began to prepare our house to go on the market, there was one room that I still felt like didn’t fit with the rest of the house: our living room. It wasn’t too far off, but I wanted to do a few tweaks to help it flow better and feel more cohesive with the rest of our home.

Knowing that we’ll be moving in just a few months, I wanted to be sure to choose items that would work in our current home and in the new house as well, and what we came up with ended up being flexible and beautiful at the same time.

Here is a shot of what our living room looked like for our small house home tour in February:

Love this beautiful living room refresh-- especially the flexibility of the IKEA EKTORP sofa and chair with the interchangeable covers! I need these in our house! Click through to the post to see how she does it!

It wasn’t bad, but a few things were bothering me. The rug was a little busy for my current taste. The gallery wall was feeling too cluttered, but at the same time, the lower part of that wall felt somewhat empty. And the pattern on the slipper chair wasn’t my favorite. I still loved our couch, coffee table, and TV stand, so those would stay.

After doing a little rearranging, rethinking the big long wall, and bringing in a few pieces that were a little more “me,” here’s what our living room is looking like now:

Love this beautiful living room refresh-- especially the flexibility of the IKEA EKTORP sofa and chair with the interchangeable covers! I need these in our house! Click through to the post to see how she does it!

The longer I decorate, the more I’m realizing that visual clutter stresses me out. (I know that sounds silly, but it’s true!) Something would bother me every time I walked into this room, and I finally realized that all of the “stuff” on the wall made everything feel cluttered to me. I took everything down except the mirror and felt myself breathe a sigh of relief. 🙂

Love this beautiful living room refresh-- especially the flexibility of the IKEA EKTORP sofa and chair with the interchangeable covers! I need these in our house! Click through to the post to see how she does it!

Instead of trying to fill that big blank wall with a bunch of picture frames, I used just a few items on the floor to add height and breadth to the space. Donnie made me a cute blanket ladder. We brought in a more substantial chair (the IKEA EKTORP armchair, which matches our couch). And a faux plant (the FEJKA) + floor lamp replaced our short side table.

Love this beautiful living room refresh-- especially the flexibility of the IKEA EKTORP sofa and chair with the interchangeable covers! I need these in our house! Click through to the post to see how she does it!

I also replaced the chevron rug with a neutral sisal rug (the OSTED flatwoven rug from IKEA), and it helped to take away some of that visual “busy-ness” I was feeling as well.

Every time I post a photo of our couch (and now our chair) on Instagram, without fail someone asks, “But you have two little boys! How in the world do you have a white couch?!”

Weeellllll… I have a little secret. The EKTORP sofa and chair both have removable couch covers, and I have more than one set. So, for example, if one of the Cs decides to eat a piece of chocolate and then sneeze while sitting on the couch (which ironically actually happened as I was typing out this post!), I can just remove the covers, throw them in the washing machine, and they come out as good as new!

The other nice thing about the EKTORP covers is that, as I mentioned, I can have more than one set, so I can change the look of my living room any time I feel like it (which, admittedly, is a lot 🙂 ) just by switching up the covers. Along with the Vittyard White covers shown above, I can put on the Lofallet Beige covers if I want to warm the space up a little bit.

Love this beautiful living room refresh-- especially the flexibility of the IKEA EKTORP sofa and chair with the interchangeable covers! I need these in our house! Click through to the post to see how she does it!

{The lighting in my living room is a little bit challenging when it comes to taking photographs– the couch and chair are really the same color.}

I have always loved the versatility of our sofa, and now our chair as well, and that I could easily make a change if they got dirty or if I wanted a different look, but I now realize that a lot of thought and ingenuity went into the design of these pieces.

With IKEA’s concept of Democratic Design, every product they make has to meet their high standards in 5 areas: form, function, price, quality, and sustainability. So the fact that my couches can stand up to my two rough and tumble boys and can easily and inexpensively be switched out is all part of IKEA’s mission in the first place– brilliant.

Love this beautiful living room refresh-- especially the flexibility of the IKEA EKTORP sofa and chair with the interchangeable covers! I need these in our house! Click through to the post to see how she does it!

As fun as it is to take pretty pictures for the blog, we also have to actually live here, and the EKTORP series is absolutely perfect for meeting our needs of function + beauty at the same time!

Love this beautiful living room refresh-- especially the flexibility of the IKEA EKTORP sofa and chair with the interchangeable covers! I need these in our house! Click through to the post to see how she does it!

With these tweaks to the living room complete, I finally feel like our whole house really flows well and fits our style… just in time to move in a few short months. 😉 The great thing is, though, that with the flexibility of the pieces we’ve chosen, we’ll be able to easily transition them to our new house and really make it feel like home from day one, and I couldn’t be more excited about that!

How do you change the look of your living room to make the space work for your family? I’d love to hear about it in the comments! 

Have a wonderful day!

Abby

A huge thanks to IKEA for sponsoring and providing product for this post! My favorable opinion of amazing home decor products is 100% my own. ? For more information, see my disclosures here.

24 Comments

  1. Gayle Randa says:

    Those small changes made a huge difference! Good Luck on selling your home! Can’t wait to see what your new home! Gayle

    1. justagirlabby says:

      Thank you, Gayle!

      ~Abby =)

  2. Casey Johnson says:

    Love it!!! The EKTORP sofa and chair is on my wish list for my living room. Sigh.

  3. Falon Beasley Caruthers says:

    What a huge difference. Love the new changes. I still think your crazy for using white. But I’m happy you can pull it off. The white is gorgeous

    1. justagirlabby says:

      haha! Thank you, Falon!

      ~Abby =)

  4. Elizabeth says:

    HAHA! I know exactly what you mean with the chocolate cake and the sneezing! 🙂
    I actually just did this to my living room- changed a dark brownish purple couch white. Needless to say with two kids I wash that white couch cover a lot.

  5. Daria of YourOrganizedLife.Org says:

    Absolutely beautiful Abby! I am with you-clutter stresses me out. I’d rather have a few decor items that I love and are personally meaningful to me than a room full. Best of luck with your move. So exciting!

    1. justagirlabby says:

      Thank you so much, Daria!

      ~Abby =)

  6. Visual clutter stresses me out too! Love the changes you made! Looks great!

    1. justagirlabby says:

      Thanks so much, Denise!

      ~Abby =)

  7. I have been searching for blue and white check fabric. Where did you find the check for the pillows? Or are they throw pillows you purchased somewhere?

    1. justagirlabby says:

      I wish I could help, but I bought these already made up at Target! So sorry about that!

      ~Abby =)

  8. LA McClure says:

    You have a great eye for style! I would love this in my own home!

  9. I love Ikea! I wish there was one close to me. I love your ideas for a smaller living room. Right now we are in our starter house, and have goals to build in the future. So happy for you guys! I’m sure with this look, plus your pretty kitchen, that your house will sell fast 🙂

    1. justagirlabby says:

      You are too sweet! Thank you, Sahvana!

      ~Abby =)

  10. You are so brave to dare into white. I have a chocolate corduroy couch. Looking back now I paid way to much for a couch sectional to have four children frequenting it. I’m considering replacing it with two couches instead. A slip cover design sounds like a great idea.

  11. Heathers Looking Glass says:

    I agree that the rug was too busy, and I think it made the room look smaller. Looks great now!

  12. “visual clutter.” love this term and totally agree. it’s stressful! this room looks beautiful and the way you’ve transformed your townhouse is really just amazing. moving on to your before and after whole house post i’ve been trying to get to forever.

    1. justagirlabby says:

      Thanks so much, Erin!

      ~Abby =)

  13. I agree about the visual clutter thing. I like hanging one or two large pictures on a big wall. I also make sure my counter tops are clear!!

  14. Abby,

    I can totally relate to clutter on the walls! I enjoy having a clean and simply decorated space. The blue table under the TV is beautiful, and I think the plant adds a bit of nature to the space as well.

    1. justagirlabby says:

      Thanks so much, Laura!

      ~Abby =)

  15. Abby. I just love ❤️ your white couch 🙂
    I have a brown leather one for this reason. Brown goes with our decor the best but the leather wipes everything right away. Leather cleaner makes it sunny and new again.
    I love how you transformed this film. It gives me motivation to do the same. I’m currently in the middle of a huge undertaking of decluttering my entire house. I can’t believe how much junk we have. Visual clutter makes me feel bad as well.
    Have a good weekend

    1. justagirlabby says:

      Thanks so much, Amanda! Hope you had a great weekend, too!

      ~Abby =)

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