it all started with a coffee table

This coffee table to be exact

Arhaus Dalton Coffee Table

Isn't it beautiful? I absolutely adore it. It's been the constant that we've built our great room, and much of our main level, around. But as beautiful as it is, it's also been a constant headache as we've spent months trying to find furniture to compliment (but not match) it.

It's our first foray into what I've deemed "grown up design," which means we're really designing a room vs. buying a set of furniture from a store. Not that there's anything wrong with that -- our first house was decorated beautifully and we received loads of compliments on our matchy match sets. But for this house, we (ok, I) really wanted to flex our (my) decorating muscle and see how we (I) can make our rooms feel even more chic by buying complimentary vs. matching pieces.

I have to say that I'm super excited about how the great room is panning out. With the few updates to the kitchen we're making we've managed to make a really awesome contemporary meets industrial space. The only hang up for me right now has been the curtains ... and the fact that we can't afford a new dining room set, but back to curtains ... Because the dining room is connected to the great room (see our floor plans), I really think we need to use the same color curtains throughout. The challenge comes in because we're using a darker accent paint color on our two-story fireplace and bringing it into the kitchen and dining room, and I'm really not sure how a charcoal curtain will look on a dark wall, in a small space with our current, dark dining set.

I wish I could figure out a Photoshop mock-up to get some opinions, but the few skills I have aren't cutting it. We're hoping to visit tonight and take pictures so I can attempt to mock-up how it will look, but in the meantime wanted to post one of my favorite things we've bought for our new place.