Living Room Inspiration with Havenly

This post was not sponsored by Havenly, but I did receive the design package for free and I make a commission if you sign up for a package with my link. Thank you for supporting the brands that keep this blog alive!

Now that I’m settling into my first job and life has calmed down a bit, Titi and I are finally ready to tackle decorating our apartment, specifically our living room. We’ve been living at our current apartment for almost a year now, and to be honest, we haven’t done too much since living here. I just think that besides trying to save our money for other big purchases (like an airplane), we get a little lost when it comes to finding pieces that look great together. It’s easy for us to get overwhelmed, and then it gets put on the back burner for other less stressful tasks. Thankfully, the Havenly, an online interior design company, teamed up with me to make over our living room. In this post, I’m going to share our living room preview with Havenly and share my experience with them thus far.

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The company behind the name

If you aren’t familiar with Havenly, let me give you some details on the company that transformed my living room from drab to fab. Havenly is an online interior design company that will re-design your space completely online. No need to go in to see someone in person or wait months to get on someone’s books. Havenly makes it super easy to find a designer that matches your design aesthetic and to create a look that best fits for your space.

Next up, the style quiz

Once I signed up for Havenly (which was super easy to do), I was able to take a short quiz to help define our likes, dislikes, and select patterns that appeal to your décor taste. You can also upload inspiration photos from Pinterest or rate the ones that they give you on the website. After taking the quiz, setting your budget, and giving Havenly more details of what you’re looking for, you can then select a designer that best matches your design aesthetic.

Titi and I ended up choosing Amanda because based off of her previous work, she looked like the designer that would best match what we were hoping for in our living room design. Our living room space is pretty small, on one side it opens up the kitchen/dining room while the other side is the sliding patio doors.

What we wanted

When Titi and I sat down to talk about what we wanted, we both really wanted a space that felt homey, relaxed, and a place we could hang out with friends and family. Our style quiz results ending up being a mix of boho and farmhouse, which I think Amanda did a good job of mixing the two styles that we liked. For our space, we really wanted something that included a neutral sofa with pops of colors or patterns to bring everything together.

This is some of the images that we sent her for inspiration of some designs that we really liked (aka basically my entire Pinterest board minus a few images- just kidding!).

Vision Boards

After chatting with Amanda online and sending over some photos that we found online that we liked, she sent over 3 vision board ideas to see if she was on the right track with our style or not. These are what she came up with below:

Breezy Blues

Bohemian Farmhouse

Electric Boho

Amanda definitely gave me designs that were similar but very different in their own ways. One is giving total beachy vibes while the other two are giving me that boho/ modern farmhouse vibes, which I absolutely love. Going into this process, Titi and I had no idea what to call the designs and ideas that we liked, but Amanda really nailed it in terms of what we were looking for.

Throughout this process, you are heavily encouraged to be open, honest, and to give feedback to your designer. You should share exactly why you do or don’t like something that your designer picked out or designed for you. This way they can get a better idea of what they need to tweak, what to take out completely, and find you something that you do really like. One thing that I definitely encourage you to do is if you’re living with another person to include your person in the design process. Otherwise you may end up with a design you love, but that your partner hates completely.

Final design concept

Amanda nailed the vision boards so much that Titi and I were torn between the Electric Boho and Bohemian Farmhouse. We really liked a lot of elements from both designs that Amanda decided to mesh the two together to design our final living room concept. Here is the final design concept:

Final Thoughts

Overall, I love the design that Amanda created for us. It fits what I was hoping for while still being unique and budget-friendly. I will say that I think Havenly is perfect if you need help putting together the bigger pieces in your home such as sofa, side chairs, etc. Because art and trinkets are more personal, it was hard to find for your designer to find those types of things that you really like.

It was pretty funny though because I asked for her to find art by black owned artists, and she sent me plenty of images that were of black women but like the ones that were super cheesy. I can’t help but to laugh. She did really try her hardest, but alas art is so personal that its best for those type of things for you to find them yourself. Another thing that I loved about Havenly is that you can tell your designer your room dimensions, which allows them to find pieces that will actually fit in your space. They will also create a 3D rendering and layout design so you can see exactly how the pieces will look in your space. This is what it ended up looking:

After you finalized your design, it’s time to shop either through the Havenly website or on your own shopping. There is no requirement to purchase what they picked out for you, but if you do, they get a small commission from your purchases. I finalized the design of our living room in December, and I’m just now starting to buy pieces 4 months later. Thankfully, you’re not on a time limit so you can keep shopping until your heart is content.

One con that I quickly noticed is that sometimes your designer will pick out pieces that can be pretty expensive. You just have to make it clear what your budget is and whether or not that budget is for individual pieces or overall. For an example, my designer found me a sofa that was beautiful, but it was very close to $3,000. While I loved it, I didn’t really want to spend my entire budget on one item. I asked her for some other options that were more budget friendly, and she found me plenty to choose from. I think with a process like this, you will only be as happy as long as you speak your mind.

I am very excited to get my living room together and make it a space where Titi and I want to spend all of our time together. The process was very easy, and I enjoyed my experiences with Havenly. Now I’m thinking about the dining room and bedroom that need a little bit of work as well. Once the living room is completely decorated from top to bottom, I will show you guys the final reveal. If you want to try Havenly for yourself, you can use my code MICKIE25 for 25% off a Mini or Full Package.