Budget-Friendly Farmhouse Living Room Makeover

Love & Specs
by Love & Specs
10 Materials
$800
2 Weeks
Easy

This is our black-and-white Scandinavian farmhouse-inspired living room makeover, the crazy before and afters and all of the budget-friendly decor and design decisions we made along the way to make it happen. This is a transformation you have to see to believe!

Here's the "Before" of our living room space. Our home decor draws from a variety of style influences, including Scandinavian farmhouse, 50's Southwest ranch home and bits of traditional and transitional style, which is a long-winded way of saying our home's style is eclectic and ever-evolving.


We're not afraid to mix patterns and periods and love reinventing an older piece to give it a new life or purpose, but this living room was getting a little too eclectic.

A few rules that we used to guide this living room makeover:

  1. Stay within our black, white, wood/wheat and seafoam (accents) color palette.
  2. It all had to be budget friendly (which meant we needed to make a lot of the existing pieces work like the couch, armchairs and sidetables and make a big impact with the updates).
  3. Somehow incorporate my beloved old pink velvet armchair that I bought for $25 at an antiques warehouse.
  4. That charcoal chalkboard wall had to get some sort of lighter facelift.
  5. Include a charcoal/black and white buffalo check in some creative way.

This old armchair would become the centerpiece of the living room's design. We'd have it reupholstered in a budget-friendly black and white buffalo check fabric and design the entire space around a beautifully updated wingback armchair!

Before I dropped it off to be reupholstered in my budget friendly buffalo check fabric, I stripped the gold paint from those beautiful cabriole legs and sanded them to give them that worn, raw look. I then sealed them in a clear varnish.

And this is the "After"! Quite the transformation, with just a few easy updates and some budget-friendly decor swaps, this space got a beautiful, cozy facelift that we love.

I added two of these white, Jenny Lind-style side tables to brighten the room, and they were under $150! They're so fun and go perfectly with that Scandinavian farmhouse style

Using a really fun, funky, Scandinavian-inspired printed wallpaper was a really budget-friendly, easy way to lighten up this wall and pull the entire space together. Wallpaper is always an easy way to make a big impact, and it's low cost compared to other accent wall design choices.

Mixing patterns in the same colorway, like the wallpaper, the buffalo check chair, the pillow and these cute bud vases is a great way to be playful and fun with a space and to give it that funky, collected farmhouse vibe. And adding the seafoam green accent color was the perfect way to add a little bit of color without taking away from the black and white theme.

And the "After" of that old pink velvet chair! Can you believe that it's the same chair? Having this chair reupholstered was the perfect way to keep a piece I love that has great bones, but update it with a more current fabric and in a way that inspired this entire space's design! I love the large black and white buffalo check and absolutely loved pairing it with a floral-printed pillow in that same color way.

And the chair looks perfect in this room! Buffalo check is such a cozy pattern and it really ties together the entire farmhouse design of the space. The worn wood cabriole legs also pair perfectly with the fabric!

And for the perfect, budget-friendly art for the wall I bought $6 farm animal prints on Easy, had them printed in poster size at Walgreens, and painted Ikea frames in the same black paint that we used on all of the doors in our house. It's my go-to budget-friendly hack for adding fun art to your space!

And I scored a couple of inexpensive, black and white faux bone inlay trays at At Home and they were the perfect pieces to go on top of the tables, and look great next to the black and white buffalo check chair and floral print pillow!

Resources for this project:
See all materials
Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.
Hometalk may collect a small share of sales from the links on this page.More info
Love & Specs
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
Go
Frequently asked questions
Have a question about this project?
  1 question
  • Pam MacLeod Pam MacLeod on Nov 15, 2017

    Your room looks great congratulations. I have just discovered printable wall art. Last week I wanted an 18x24 print. I went to Staples to have it printed. They said the only option for that size was laminated paper. I had it done it cost $25 and now I think there is too much glare when framed. Is it possible to have that size printed on paper? And if so what weight of paper do you choose? Thanks

Comments
Join the conversation
 1 comment
  • Robin Robin on Aug 29, 2019

    Absolutely Love this room!! I’m planning to use black/white/tan in my bedroom (featuring buffalo check) and you nailed it!! Thanks for the inspiration

Next