Pardon My French: Decor

I've been lazy and haven't followed up on any ideas from my post about updating the house to reflect a springier feel. That is, until today!

Here's the living room before (in the fall, with blue wall and unpainted closet door):

Here it is now:

I freshened things up (hopefully) with a bold floral patterned area rug from World Market, some bright yellow striped throw pillows from Pottery Barn, and a rectangular vase full of branches loaded with faux yellow buds from Hobby Lobby. I've never been a fan of silk florals, but I like these a lot. I tried using real branches from our forsythia bushes, and they were shriveled up with in 4 hours. Zero maintenance works much better for me!

I still need to add a few more new throw pillows, but I'm trying to do a little at a time since just a couple measly fabric covers with inserts from Pottery Barn pretty much broke the bank. Hmph.

So does it at least look a little brighter? What about these colors?

Forgive me for what will likely be a boring-ass post, but I need help! Go ahead and skip it if talk of fabrics and paint colors puts you to sleep...

It's spring, and I want to get my house up to speed. To that end, I want new throw pillows for the living room, but because I hate Crate and Barrel's fabrics this season, and because Pottery Barn's covers do not fit the Crate and Barrel-sized pillows I currently own, I've decided to enlist good old Mom's help with sewing some instead. I've found several fabrics that I love, but I can't decide.

Ooh, quick aside on the living room: Matt recently re-painted the "focus wall," as the previous owners dubbed it. Focus wall? I'd say so. It's a massive surface, and the first thing you see when you walk through the front door. After several major faux pas on my part in the area of paint color selection, I no longer have the privilege. I always have the best of intentions, but they never quite translate from my mind to the wall. In any case, he chose the perfect shade: Behr's Herbal Garden. It's a vibrant green and I'm shocked that we lived in relative contentment with the indigo monstrosity that it replaced for as long as we did. Here's the color chip:

And here we have photos to show you before and after two coats of the stuff...

Before: Do you feel like you're submerged in an ocean? That's the effect it often had on me. Sorry for the angle of this one...I was being art-y...or maybe just having a seizure:

After: vast improvement, n'est-ce pas? Nice that in both pictures, taken months apart, I still have all of the pillows piled onto the same chair. I do this since they wrinkle easily and then look like crap. I put them out for show of course, but god forbid someone actually use them...

So now, instead of having to decorate around an inky blue when the range of colors at my disposal is at its peak, I can base my palette on a springy green! It's thrilling stuff, isn't it?

Anyway, here are some of the loverly patterns I've found:

Grass Trellis by Serena & Lily: possibly my favorite so far, but is it too plain? Too much green?

Chippendale Fretwork in Kiwi by Waverly: another favorite, but I'm having the same issue with the greeniosity:

Dandy Damask in Avocado by Michael Miller: Ok, I like green. I also love damask and its heaviness is lightened up by the bright color used in this pattern, but I'm not sure it goes well with the style of the living room, which is decidedly contemporary. Do you think it even matters?

Amsterdam Olive/White : I think I like this one better than the damask:

Lime Finery from Freespirit Fabrics' Freshcut Collection: See, I do like more than green! This is so pretty and I think yellow accents might be the perfect way to go in this room. Then again, these particular hues still have a lot of green in them...dammit!:

Mingei Floral in Pumpkin: I love the corals and pinks. It's feminine without being overly so, I think...I need to consider these things as I am outnumbered 3-1 by males in my own home, you know:

Pottery Barn does sell (at an outrageous price) fabrics by the yard, so a PB pattern may be a possibility after all. I love this one, "Nora":

Hot Pink Paisley by Doodlefish: Um, I don't even think it requires stating that this would be instantly vetoed:

Groovy Petals from Freespirit Fabrics' Freshcut collection: Hmm. I like this one in general, but it might be too vintage looking, and the pretty cream background somehow just looks dingy to me. Maybe for a girl's bedroom or something other than the living room?

I'm also thinking that in addition to patterns, I could do a few solids to break things up. For those, I am loving the idea of some butter-colored matelasse, kinda like the fabric of the bottom coverlet from Neiman's:

Aside from pillow covers, I might spruce things up by actually making use of the centerpiece glassware that I was thankfully too lazy to sell after using at our wedding reception. I love these simple redbud branch designs:

I realize that you can barely see the branch centerpiece in this photo, but don't you also love the chairs? They make me want to hit up the nearest antique shop for something cool to paint and reupholster!