We made a couple changes to the family room. I rolled up the round, floral rug (see old room tour here), put that away, and put a nice, natural jute rug in its place.  I think it definitely opens the room up a whole lot more. I stalked the jute rug on Rugs USA until they had a sale for 70% off (their after Thanksgiving sale), and when they did, I pounced right away.

I had ordered a rug from them before this one and didn’t like it. It was priced well, but in person it wasn’t great, so I shipped it back. Shipping was half the price I paid for the rug and I thought that was ridiculous, but I guess part of offering a low price point is that if you don’t like it, you have to pay return shipping yourself. I vowed to never order from them again. Fast forward a few more months, and I was hunting for a jute rug for this room, and they seemed to have the best price (and the reviews on this rug was much better), so I took a chance. I’m glad I took it because I love the rug! It’s a large 8’x10′ one and it really fills the room better than the previous. The floral one is rolled up and waiting for me to find a perfect spot for it. I’d love to use it upstairs, but I think it wouldn’t look that great on carpet, so I’m saving for when/if we ever change it to wood floors.

We’ve been using the rug since December and I still love it. There is this natural grass sort of smell (it has mostly disappeared), and it sheds some brown fibers and some brownish dust, but I could deal with that. I was afraid to get jute because it really can’t be cleaned should we spill on it, but we never really eat here (or allow the kids to eat here), so it’s been pretty safe. I was also afraid it would be rough, but it’s feels soft, and the only complaint the girls and I have is that the fibers get on their clothes, butwe haven’t really cared about that anymore either. Even still, I’m glad we made the switch to the jute.

The other change in the room is the colorful, vintage sap buckets I’ve had up for 6 years (see the room in 2011), came down! It was the first thing that went up when we moved into this house, and it was also hanging up in our previous place. I loved it a lot, but it was time for a change. We’ve had this very large French sign for a few years and I was almost going to sell it, but one day, while I was looking at it in the garage, it dawned on me that this would be a suitable replacement for the sap buckets. It had the right presence for the wall, and I’m glad I never got rid of it.

The last change was taking down burlap curtains and cheesecloth, I left them up in the breakfast area, which is adjacent to this room. The burlap came down and some of these white curtains from IKEA went up (it’s the same one I use in the other rooms). It makes the room much brighter because the brown tint from the curtains combined with the brown from the rug, the room had too much of a warm-brown tint. The white curtains balance out the room much better.

I love our white walls, but to be honest what the pictures don’t show is they are getting cream with age, and there are lots and lots of dirty kid marks and drawings all over them. So if you’re wondering how we keep our walls so white, we don’t. It’s all a camera trick.