A Modern Living Room Mood Board for an Easy Room Refresh

A modern living room mood board with a green velvet sofa for an easy room makeover with resources and room pictures.

Happy New Year! Do you feel tired and blah after the holidays or are you refreshed and excited for a blank slate and a fresh start? I’m the latter thanks to the New Year New Room Refresh I participate every January hosted by my friend Stephanie from Casa Watkins Living and with other blogging friends.

It is a great way to get a start on new year’s goals, be productive through the cold winter season, and pave the way for Spring. I would love for you to join in on the fun!

The New Year New Room Refresh is a month-long challenge to makeover (small or large) a room of your choice. The participants (like myself) post an update every Tuesday morning with the reveal at the end of the month.

Update: You can now find all progress posts and the final reveal below.

1. Modern Living Room Mood Board (you are here)
2. Is it cheaper to reupholster old furniture or buy new?
3. Easy Floating Mantel Facelift
4. DIY Textured Paint Vase and Planter Makeover
5. Organic Modern Living Room Reveal!

Scroll down to see all of the participants and find us on Instagram! Use #newyearnewroomchallenge to share your own refresh so we can cheer you on!

I’m excited to do an easy refresh for a modern living room makeover after decorating with a more is more approach for Christmas including four trees! The new year is a great time to simplify and maybe start on Spring cleaning and decluttering a little early.

Why focus on modern style?

We have an open layout floor plan that includes the foyer, a piano studio in the front room, living space, a small dining area, a kitchen, and a view into my office. All of my decorating tendencies lean towards maximalism with lots of color and pattern. So my focus on the living room is to be a transitional space for the eye to rest.

Our family of four spends most of our time together in this area so it is important that it doesn’t feel cluttered or fighting attention with everything else in the line of sight. I’ve slowly found second-hand scores of gorgeous wish list pieces of modern furniture over the last four years. I’m ready to bring it all together with a splurge or two!

My modern living room mood board

This post contains affiliate links for your shopping convenience to brands I love. You still pay the same price but I may earn a small commission.

Let me explain the pieces as I already have most of them! Adding existing pieces to a mood board or searching online is a great way to get ideas, ie, green velvet sofa. Check out this post to see how to create an interior design room mood board.

The Lula and Georgia sofa and Z Gallery coffee table I found second-hand shortly after moving in. The large area rug I purchased right after moving in is still in stock. A local antique mall is where I found the beautiful landscape oil painting.

My husband and I found the pair of chairs at a recycling store when were stationed in Japan about 8 years ago. We’ve been wanting to get them professionally reupholstered ever since. Well, we just did it during the holidays with a lovely neutral fabric called P Kauffman Wave of Affection in Sandstone.

While I was spending $$$$ on getting chairs reupholstered, I finally splurged and purchased the sofa table of my dreams (with a coupon of course!).

I recently found the pair of bone inlay accent tables from West Elm (2013) and the original 2005 TMS perpetual face vase all second-hand.

The snake plant, clay pot, and mantel are all similar things I will be using in our modern living room makeover.

I’m hoping for a new rug from Ruggable if possible and may purchase new decorating accessories like a pair of sage green pillow covers and battery-operated with remote taper candles. It would look like this.

You can click on the images below to go directly to the store link for those items still available.

Modern Living Room Refresh Before Pictures

Here’s a snapshot of the living room when we did our final walk-through. Lots of brown and beige but a great space to work with.

Here it is four years later. As you can see, I’ve already added lots of modern and updated elements like a DIY german smear fireplace! The plan for this refresh is to tweak what we have and simplify and add a couple of wish list items. This NYNRR might be my easiest one yet but probably the most expensive.

Modern Living Room DIYs

I only have two actual DIYs to tackle as I’m leaving the reupholstery to the pros. The first DIY will be the floating mantel shelf. I’ve already found two decorative corbels at the antique mall and picked up ornamental molding at Lowes to embellish the fireplace.

I plan on painting it all matte black for a modern finish. Here’s a not-so-great scribble mock-up of what I want.

The second DIY is transforming a large gold pot that I’ve been hiding under my desk into a clay look alike with the DIY baking soda paint trick to mimic the gorgeous pot I have on my mood board.

Behind the scenes is decluttering, selling, and donating items to make simplifying easier. The DIY cane cabinet in the picture below holds seasonal and extra decor and books. I’ve already cleaned out my crafting closet, linen closet, and decorating cabinet right before the holidays so I’m feeling good about this part.

I’m not sure if the blue and wood chest will stay as a side table. It was my husband’s and we are definitely keeping it but it may move to my daughter’s room for a bedside table. She’s not a little girl anymore and her room shows it! Emo-artsy teenager, anyone?

The wall section between the office and dining room with the larger bird painting usually is busy with furniture and plants and I plan on simplifying that too! With the addition of the console table behind the sofa, I want as much walking room around that area as I can get.

Modern Living Room To-Do List (not necessarily in this order)

• Fireplace mantel makeover with corbels and ornamental molding painted black
• Reupholster pair of barrel chairs found in Japan with neutral fabric by a professional $$$$
• Purchase burled wood console table from CB2 $$$
• Add second-hand modern accent tables $$
• Add mcm style with salvaged brass gear and a thrifted perpetual face vase $$$
• Simplify tabletop styling
• Repurpose a gold large planter with DIY clay treatment
• Refigure layout

Past New Year New Room Refresh Makeovers in Our Current House

New Year New Room Refresh Participants

I can’t wait to see what my friends are doing and check in on their progress each week. Will you be participating or following along? Leave a comment and let’s chat!

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  A Modern Living Room Mood Board for an Easy Room Refresh
  A modern living room mood board with a green velvet sofa for an easy room makeover with resources and room pictures. Happy New Year! Do you feel tired and blah after the holidays or are you refreshed and excited for a blank slate and a fresh start? I’m the latter thanks to the New Year…