Turning My Ordinary Living Room into My Dream Whimsigoth Library 🔮

For a while now, we've been wanting to give our living room a makeover. We've had it set up the same way since we moved here, but we've always had a difficult time finding a layout that really felt right. The loveseat definitely wasn't helping. It wasn't big enough for Alex, let alone the two of us. We knew we could make the room so much more comfortable, so we decided it was time for a change. In terms of style, we knew we wanted to lean into a darker, moodier aesthetic, so I got to work making a mood board. I really liked the look of whimsical and Victorian-inspired rooms with lots of rich colors, layered textures, and eclectic vintage decor. So in terms of colors, I keep feeling drawn to burgundy, dark purple, olive green, and gold, and I also keep really liking black bookshelves. I think my biggest challenge is going to be keeping it warm and earthy by balancing out those dark bookshelves with other decor and lighter colors to brighten it up a bit. I definitely want to incorporate a lot of different textures. I love the look of velvet together with metallic elements, so I want to try to do that here. And I want to blend a lot of different kinds of decor, so thrifted vintage stuff, celestial items, and things from nature. I feel like the combination of all of that together is going to look really cool and give it an eclectic look. Then it was time to get started. I took down my big dried flower garland, then I took everything off my gallery wall and bookshelf to set aside for later. Then we said goodbye to our little couch before it went to its new home and gave everything a good deep clean. And then the three of us got to setting up the furniture. It took us a bit of time to get these all set up the other day, and I have to be honest, when I saw this black color I got a little bit nervous. Just because we usually buy lighter color furniture, I've actually never had black colored furniture before, so I was a little scared I made the wrong choice. But after getting used to it and then coming downstairs and seeing it this morning, I feel like it's looking so much cozier in here with this darker color. The only little thing that's bothering me, and I'm being nitpicky here, but the top of the shelves are alternating this light and dark wood color. When we went to pick out these shelves, the half size were only available in solid black, which I actually like with the light wood because I feel like it's an accent color, but on the top that's the only part that bothers me because I feel like the alternating colors don't look quite right. So again, I'm being nitpicky, but I know it's going to bother me if I leave it, so I'm gonna see if I can color match this black and then we'll paint the tops of the shelves. We brought one of the black shelves to a local hardware store to get the paint color matched, but because of the variation in the natural wood it was really difficult to find the right color, but they were so nice they kept trying and we finally were able to get a color that was pretty similar. And while we were at it, we decided to paint these wood corner appliques that we also found at the hardware store. We thought we could experiment with adding them to the top corners of the bookshelves to give them some more character. And we really wish we had thought about this before we assembled all the bookshelves, but we decided to add some wallpaper to the back of the half size ones. Some of you recommended this back when I did my library room makeover last year, and I thought it was such a good idea that I wanted to use it on the accent shelves. Then I decided to use some mounting tape to attach these corner appliques. Definitely not a professional way of doing it, but they are really lightweight and I just didn't have the heart to nail into my brand new bookshelves. Okay, the shelves are looking even better than I thought they would. I love the wallpaper on the accent shelves. I feel like it added some personality and brightened them up a bit. I'm also really glad we decided to go and redo these top shelves and paint them a darker color to match. I feel like it just made it a lot more cohesive and I love the layout of the shelves as well. I feel like I'm in a little nook over here. It's just making the room feel a lot cozier. And my favorite thing of all is these little appliques. This was such a simple DIY, but it took a modern looking bookshelf and made it feel a lot more antique and custom. With the shelves complete, it was time to move on to the couch. And we were so conflicted on which color to choose. So I ended up pulling my patrons and having them decide. And one yoo-ha trip and some lower back pain later, we ended up with this beautiful olive green velvet couch. They made the right choice. Right around this time, Obi told us he wanted a room makeover too. So I thought I'd turn things over to him to introduce today's Litter Robot. Of course, Obi insisted on decorating around his Litter Robot 5 Pro. Every time he uses it, it automatically separates the clean litter from the waste and deposits everything into a sealed drawer below. Instead of scooping every day, I just empty the drawer when it lets me know it's full. He loves it because it keeps a clean litter bed ready for him after every cycle. And I love it because it keeps the odors from the litter box contained. I also love that I can check in on his litter box habits through the Whisker app and the built-in camera on the Litter Robot 5 Pro because it's just one more way I can make sure he's happy and healthy. Thanks to Litter Robot, I can spend less time scooping litter and more time on Obi's beauty treatments and snacking routine. If you've been thinking about upgrading your cat's litter box, make sure to check out my Litter Robot link in the description below. Thanks so much to Litter Robot for sponsoring this video. With all the furniture set up, it was time to move on to the decor phase. And I did have a lot of things around the house that I could use to decorate my shelves, but I wanted to make a trip to the antique shop and the thrift store to see if there was anything good I could find. When I was looking for decor, I was trying to find a lot of earthy and warmer toned items because I feel like with the black shelves, if I added too much cool toned stuff, it would feel more cold in this room and I really want it to feel warm and inviting. So I found this wooden chest for only six dollars and I thought this would be great for organizing and it would look really nice on the shelves. I also found this beautiful little box for only four dollars and I love things like this for storing matches, crystals, any little knickknacks I want to organize on my shelf. This votive tea light holder was only one dollar. I thought it was so unique. I really love the stained glass look and I feel like it's going to add a lot of warmth to the shelves. I also found this little table lamp and even though I don't love the lampshade that much, I really like the base of it. So I'm thinking of changing this out for something that fits with the style of the room a little bit better. I actually have a DIY in mind for this and I think I'm gonna put it on a little table and keep it in the corner back here. I have a lot of books already, but I couldn't help myself when I saw these. I thought they would look really nice on the shelves and you all know I love collecting cookbooks and I found this one. I really liked the color. This is Rodale's Naturally Great Foods Cookbook. So this will be fun to flip through and I'm the most excited about this one. This is called Holiday Pumpkins and it's a cookbook and I believe craft book as well for making different things with pumpkins and I'm really excited to read it this fall. I didn't get these from the thrift store, but I had to show you because I'm so excited. So a lot of you have asked me about the little tealight lantern houses that I keep on my bookshelves and they sold out a few years ago and I haven't been able to find them anywhere back in stock, but if you search glass and metal tealight lantern houses, you can usually find some version of these secondhand on different platforms and I found these and I feel like they match perfectly with the rest of my lanterns. So I'm so excited to add these onto the shelves and expand my little lantern village. And I had to save the best for last. I am so excited about this. So this is a vintage mini clock that I found and I think it was made in 1960 and I love this so much because it has these beautiful celestial details. If you look really close, you can see a moon and planets and stars all along the top and some really gorgeous ornate detailing. I really wanted something celestial themed for my shelves and this was just perfect and the best thing was this was only $14. As soon as I walked into the thrift store, it was the first thing I saw and I snatched it up right away. So I think this is one of my favorite thrift finds in a while and it's going to look so pretty on the shelves. So I want to wipe everything down and give it a good clean just because everything's a little bit dusty and then we can start decorating. Aside from the new thrifted items, I decorated the shelves with my books and things we already owned. I brought in most of the decor from our old bookshelf and repurposed the art from the gallery wall. It was really nice being able to give so many of our old things a new home while making the room feel fresh. We also have a few sentimental pieces like gifts from family and friends and we wanted to keep them on display because they make us smile every time we see them. I've been seeing these beautiful antique Victorian lamps all over my Pinterest. They're stunning but they're very expensive so I wanted to see if I could DIY something similar. First I removed the trim from this red lampshade. Then I went in with fabric glue and added black trim all over the lamp instead. I ended up finding that pins worked best to make sure the trim was secure as it dried. Then I pinned floral appliques to alternating panels and attached them with fabric glue. I left it to dry overnight and very carefully removed the pins. I could have stopped here but I decided to add some of this beaded fringe. I thought it was really cute and would make it look even more vintage so I pinned it to the bottom border and sewed it on. However if you're doing this yourself make sure you add the fringe before you add the trim just because it was really hard to get the needle through all those layers. After a bit of struggle it was looking really cute, very gothic Victorian vibes. I will say I feel like we're leaning a little bit into burlesque territory unintentionally. I feel like the fringe and the lace and the black and red are definitely a statement but honestly I love it. Next I wanted to make a frame with pressed flowers and faux butterflies. I cut out a piece of black mixed media paper. Then I used mod podge to layer pressed ferns and flowers onto the paper. Once it was dry I put it in the frame. Then I glued the butterflies on top with their wings hanging off the edges for a more dimensional look. This was a really simple project but it turned out so cute and I love how it looks on the bookshelves. When I was first looking at inspiration for the bookshelves I was looking at photos of old homes with these beautiful Victorian spiral staircases in the libraries. So I decided to browse on Facebook Marketplace just to see if I could find anything similar and I found this miniature spiral staircase plant stand. I thought this would be great as a cat tree that also doubles as a mini spiral staircase for the bookshelves. Currently the steps are this modern gray wood color and I feel like they would look a lot nicer in a darker shade so I'm thinking of painting them with the leftover paint from the bookshelves. And then to make them look even more Victorian I want to go in with some gold furniture paint and do some designs on them with stencils so they look even more like the library stairs. I painted the steps black but when it was time to go in with the stencil I started running into a lot of trouble. I tried using different brushes but I still couldn't get the print to look clean. I'm not sure if it was the paint I used or something else I was doing but if any of you have stenciling tips or any ideas for creating this effect in a different way please let me know and I'll try it out. But even though I gave up on the gold designs for now I still really liked the look of the solid black steps on the staircase. Look what we got for you! We got you something! Is that your very own gothic Victorian cat tree? To complete the look I wanted to bring in some more colors and textures from the original mood board so I added this metallic tapestry pillow and a burgundy velvet throw pillow. I had this big paisley shawl and I thought it would be so pretty as a throw and I also added this embroidered red pillow with metallic accents. Also Alex found a new tv stand and customized it with some mother of pearl knobs. I thought they looked so pretty and celestial. They were really easy to swap but it made a big difference. All in all I'm really happy with how this living room makeover turned out. I feel like it's so much cozier and more comfortable and the shelves are filled with all these beautiful things that make us happy when we see them. Everything from the lantern houses to my favorite books, family heirlooms that remind us of our loved ones. Having everything here in one place just makes this room feel really special. I also love the earthy natural elements mixed with the darker moodier colors and best of all it feels so much more comfortable in here for us. We can't wait to keep spending time in this room. Okay friends I hope you enjoyed this video and I can't wait to keep sharing more with you soon. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you next time.