I am a new member to gw and hope I am not intruding here but Wow! We are attempting this exact same thing right now. We moved to 82 acres of sand and sage brush just over a year ago and are starting with absolutly nothing but what we brought with us and can provide or build on our own. We are 38 miles from the edge of town and we are 100 percent off grid. We have no address, so no fire , police, or medical services of any kind out here. When we moved here our plans were to gradually build up to a self sustaining life style over a period of a few years. We had a savings and job options all lined up. Instaed, the economy tanked and I lost any hope of working due to my health. We were kind of forced to decide on the spot if we realy wanted to do this or if we were going to go back to the city. We decide this realy is what we want to do and have been sticking to it. We haul water, we are building solar panels, have a very small geni for night time power and heat with scavaenged wood and use straw for insulation for both us and the animals. It took a full year for my partner to find any kind of work at all we lived off of saving and my tiny disability income until then and now most of his pay goes for fuel to get to work(79 miles round trip every day) . I was not able to get a pair of goats until Aug 25th of last year. We still need two more does so that we can keep a clean heard of 3-5 goats going at all times for both meat and milk. We have chickens ( the first thing we put out here, Reds, Amercanas,Siklies, and Bantoms) as well as Ducks and Pheasant. We plan on Turkeys and Geese this year. We also plan on rabbits in the future ( the new zelands )but have a large wild population to hunt for now. We will be saving for American Guinea Hogs and Irish Dexter Cattle. If we must, we will do a Dexter / Jersy cross for the cattle. We only want the smaller heiratige breads of the larger livestock since they are much nicer to the land ( I can comfortably range 3-5 dexters on the same amount of land as 1 of the standard breads of cattle and that 3-5 animals is all we will need ) and they can comfortably handle our major temp swings with out health issues. I only managed a small experimental bed last year. It was to see if I could grow all of the things that the folks here has major dificulty with since they are some of the mainstays in most home gardens (tomatoes , peppers, beans, greens, and mushrooms ). With a lot of creative gardening , it worked. So this year will be my first real garden attempt. A large percentage of what others have posted is on our list of things to plant or grow. This is not an all inclusive list but we have also added things Quinoa , flax , sorgums, sunchokes, sunflowwers, barley, oats, rye, buck wheat, soybeans, alfalfa, millet, wheat and clover ( because all of these they are good for both human and animal consumption). Most of these things can be grow together because they devolpe and mature at different times, many are symbiotic relationship plants ( think 3 sisters planting,like corn, beans and squash in the same bed), and they also build and maintaining the soil. We have not yet aquired most of these but hope to soon. They provide food crops and fodder crops at different stages so the production is double duty. With carefull and selective harvesting and seed saving we can set aside next years crop of some of the anuals like the buck wheat. We have plans on a small orchard and I received a gift of a few nut trees for birthday ( 2 hazel nuts a pecan and an almond) and they should arive in june. We will also try to take advantage of the native plants to incourage the continued diversity of wild life we have out here. If the Fox, Cyotes ,hawks,eagles, mountain lions , badgers and other bigger preditor types have an ample food sources, our animals are less attractive to them. We also get better polination , and bug controls. I am an experianced gardener but not in this zone 5 and with these kind of temp swings ( We are alpine high desert with -5 to -15 in the winter , 100 plus regularly in the summer and a last frost date of june 10 ). I can tell you it will be a challenge to everything you think you know. So, Thank you, Your efforts do not just benefit those you seek to help but also some of us at home. I wish you the best of luck with your experiment and will follow your post for any lessons you may be able pass on.

Thanks for all your suggestions, Oceanna! Um, let's see . . . the other leather chair is dark green. Both chairs are in great shape and super comfortable for lounging and watching tv. The Santo lamp, BTW, is an antique chalkware piece that I had mounted on a lamp base. I love it, but was wondering that might "clash" with the Native American pieces. Then again, New Mexico is known as the land of three cultures, Hispanic, Anglo and Native American, and we mix our art, foods and architecture together all the time out here. It probably looks a bit weird to many people, but I'm glad that you can appreciate it. Below is a pic of it, taken a couple of years ago. "> I like your idea of a black tower. I'm thinking that it would be difficult to match the cherry of the console. What's draped over it now is a handwoven runner from Chimayo in dark green with a rusty red and cream design on it. Sorry, I didn't show a pic of that. It's a lot like this Chimayo runner, that we're now using on the sofa table. I could switch the two. And, just to really blow everyone away by the eclectic mix of our 3 cultures in this room, this is the artwork hanging over the patio doors in here. It does have a rather Spanish look to it, though. ;^P ">

Thanks to all who have commented so far. More ideas are welcome too. amity, thank you for your comments. I am so glad you like my try at decorating this room. This room has been a little mini-brainstorming project on my part. littledog, thanks for taking the time to critique. I have lots of photographs I can utilize as art and have done so in other parts of our home, so I may consider that in this room as well. As for the cane chair, I wanted something else in the room besides modern - to break up the stiffness of the modern style - I am working at how to accomplish that in this room. Actually my chair is very pale blue, but I think I need to darken it a bit for the room. Several folks have mentioned a shade of some type - and I might just try that in this room (Every time I mention something to DH about what our decorating needs, I can see his eyes saying isn't the room done yet, i.e. you have to buy more stuff?). I have another floral arrangement - I'll repost when I get the smaller art pieces framed or other pieces of art. There really is nothing that serves as a focal point in this room other than the view or the art on the walls. This room is more of a conversation or formal sitting area. Our home has a great room adjacent the living room. The great room has a fireplace, sofa, TV, bookcase, a dining table, and a kitchen with a peninsula with bar stools - all of which are open to one another in one big room - so we pretty much live in that room, but happen to have this living room too. I am having the most fun decorating the living room though. meltnaz, my room does have a pinkish tone - it is my standard color for homes till I decide what to paint. I have had a fear of color in the past and am learning to bring that into my home. I actually used color in my two bathrooms with pretty good results - those two will be posted soon. I am having a hard time picturing the chargers on the wall - but I am thinking I might be able to utilize them - perhaps only two - somewhere in the room. I think sometimes art should be three dimensional rather than one dimensional and the chargers would accomplish that. The artwork is supposed to be centered above the loveseat, but I had moved the end table to the other side and when I did that I had to move the loveseat down which threw it all off - but I will definitely center whatever ends up going above the loveseat. les917, thank you so much for taking the time to look at my living room in detail. I have been reading your suggestions on other threads and I really admire your expertise. You always have such great suggestions. I showed DH the drapes you had orginally suggested and I think they would be better in this room, but he said - why do they have two different colors? Also I was afraid the blue color would have been too dark for what I was wanting - but now I am seeing that shades of the same color are sometimes better - I am learning as I go along. I love the lamp you picked out - I actually saw something similar at Pier I recently and liked it. I am now thinking along the same lines as you that the white shaded lamp isn't correct in the space. Now that you mention it I see what you mean about the floral, I will post the other one in the space tomorrow and if not a go, I will try to adjust this one. Thank you so much for your idea about mounting the large art piece on plywood with a darker frame - that is a great idea and would improve its stance on that wall tremendously. I almost put those boxes under the sofa table - but wanted something by the chair too. I have been looking for something round but not sure quite what style to put there - most round tables are either gate leg with splayed legs that don't seem right or a ultra modern boxey looking side table that isn't what I want either. I actually thought about stringing some of those lights on the manzanita branch - not familiar with the rice lights you mentioned, but I will research them - I like the idea of them being very small. The ceramic vase has holes in the bottom to string the cord up through. I was going to put sand in the vase to increase the weight to hold up the manzanita rather than plaster - so I can change it later if I want - I will just tape the holes off so the sand doesn't spill out. I had planned on placing black stones or moss on the top as you have suggested, once I am sure I am finished with the arrangement. I will definitely edit out some of the items in the room. I am seeing that sometimes less is more. Again thank you so much for your suggestions. Thanks to everyone for your kind words and suggestions. Believe it or not I had several other renditions before I posted this one. The curtains were supposed to be the blue ones shown in my daybed room posting (but they were too short for a sunken room - boo hoo). The light chair was originally on the other side. I also had five large reddish brown bamboo poles in the vase - but their lines were too hard and stark for the space so I substituted the manzanita branch. I will post rearrangements and adjustments later. I might not get to it till after the weekend, because I have a tour tomorrow and a party here on Saturday, so I have much to prepare for both. But I will post soon with some more photos. Thanks again to all.

This is a lovely room! In a small space continuity is important. Before you add or paint anything else, paint the daybed and both chairs a dark brown, British Colonial as mentioned above. This way you can add the color you want here and there. The table in front of the daybed needs to be higher, like a tea table height. Use the chest on the side. To make the daybed more comfy, add old fashioned wedge pillows across the back and then the big pillows on top. They are the best support and you won't even see them. https://www.amazon.com/Bolster-Replacement-Insert-Cushion-Perfect/dp/B011CZWYT6/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1542001435&sr=8-3&keywords=wedge+daybed+pillow&dpID=41J6VtPqM6L&preST=SY300_QL70&dpSrc=srch