My New Living Room! A Room & Board Redesign

Awesomely Luvvie — August 18, 2022

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Disclosure: I partnered with Room & Board on this living room redesign, but all opinions and geekery are mine.

One thing that was clear during the pandemic was the need to elevate my home spaces, and last year, the first one I did was my office. It was on the verge of the launch of Professional Troublemaker, my 2nd bestselling book. I had to upgrade my surroundings, and I tapped on Room & Board to help me make it happen. That office space is now one of my favorite rooms in my house.

Have you ever been to somebody’s house and they have that one nice room with the couch that nobody is allowed to sit on, and then the rest of the home is chaos? THAT AIN’T GON BE MY TESTIMONY. What do I look like having a mismatched house? Nah. We were overdue to do my living room, which is the other room I spend ample time in, watching TV, lounging with the family and entertaining. So, how do we match the fly of the office? Let’s roll again, Room & Board.

I wanted the living room to give livable luxury. Comfy but chic. Who knows how to design spaces for that? The Forbes Masters team (hey, Tavia and Monet!). So I asked them to create a space that fit our love of entertaining in our sanctuary. And that’s what they did! (they also designed my office).

With the dream team on board, we MOVED.

BEFORE, our living room was aight. It was comfy but it needed an upgrade. I feel like our art is what made the space look semi-decent. We liked our layout but our furniture needed to go.

So Forbes Masters came up with a beautiful design that we barely even had edits for. When they sent the renderings, I gasped. “DASSIT! Y’all understand the assignment!!!”

Room & Board specializes in form and function and high-quality pieces. Everything about this design was specifically tailored and curated. Every piece of furniture was hand-selected, and shipped much faster than even I anticipated. That’s also the cool thing about Room & Board: 90% of their products are made in America so they can ship and arrive much faster than other places. Cuz lemme tell you: interior designers are STRESSED because furniture has been taking up to one year to arrive. Between ordering these pieces and them landing in my crib, it was 8 weeks. COME TF THRU.

So when the furniture arrived, it was exactly as we pictured. It was PERFECT. We also bought a 65 inch Samsung Frame TV because those things are electronic art. It doesn’t take away from the space and when we aren’t watching TV, it actually displays artwork. Perfection all around.

Here’s our living room now:

Another thing that took this up a notch are those drapes! They are actually based on a wallpaper that Forbes Masters has! I didn’t think our walls needed to be that bold, but as drapes, they were really right for the space, so they custom made those for us.

Our walls are completed with Black art. The one over the fireplace is by Slang.

Three things that were important:

Comfortable couch that’s resilient: We went with this ivory one with reinforced fabric because GUARANTEED I spill my food at least once a week. I’ve already even gotten red lipstick on it but I hit it with some FOLEX and it’s like new.

Storage space: I may or may not have a candle addiction and need to make sure we have somewhere to put them. This 4-door storage cabinet was the perfect choice. All our electronics (cable box, Nintendo – yes we still have one) are hidden, and the candles have a home. Plus, it’s a gorgeous piece to ground the room.

Pops of color: The velvet rust swivel chairs and the jacquard ottomans pop in the room. And they play off our custom Forbes Masters drapes from Mitchell Black. I love the calm energy they’re giving! Oh and these swivel chairs compliment the ones I have in my office. LOVE EM.

Our living room is now giving COMFORTABLE. COHESIVE. STYLISH.

Thank you to Room & Board for delivering excellence once again and being a part of this journey we’re on, for this dream life that we’re molding.

Additional Thanks:

Forbes Masters – Massive thanks to this Atlanta-based interior design company owned by Tavia Forbes and Monet Masters. Before the actual physical renovations, these brilliant women already brought the vision to life with the amazing renderings.

Clare Paint – The Black-owned paint company we used for my office makeover last year! For the living room, we opted for a grayish-beige color and it completely brightened the room! The low odor of the paint was a great plus, as it was barely noticeable and didn’t even waft into the other rooms.