Oh the family room – otherwise known as ‘the room full of the random and weird’. To say we’ve made progress is a gross over statement. We’ve lived in awkwardness so far. Well, I’ll let you judge.
Here’s where we started (before we moved in):
Yeah, clearly there are some issues. That carpet for starters. In case you are just joining in we replaced all the carpet in the house (which was ‘original’ and ‘vintage’ if you know what I mean) with the most beautiful Acacia hardwood from BuildDirect. So, of course this room was no exception.
After we bought the house (and their furniture was gone) we made a list of what was going to happen:
Paint that ceiling white which is consistent with the rest of the house, and again, if you are just joining in trust me that the ceiling needed to get a a dose of white – it was painted brown and then stained a weird peach color so it was going to take a FORTUNE to strip the entire house. Plus it was cheap pine in the first place. And to be frank, I wanted it to be white anyway and I’m so very, very happy with it.
All the walls in here had to be skim coated and sanded and painted as well. They look all unnoffensive in these photos but trust me, that texture was not awesome and spending the money to paint over it seemed wasteful. If we were ever going to fix the texture, the time was now.
And new shades/drapes are in order. I just ordered them through DecorView so I’ll keep you posted when they get installed.
So that’s where we were all empty and sad – like how I felt after watching Wolf of Wall Street, only less ashamed of myself. We made the major changes already (floor, ceiling and walls) but haven’t even come close to decorating it. Well, thats not true, the sectional is ordered and should arrive next week, but besides that our ‘family room’ is looking quite bad:
Sure, i like everything in here, but its just not designed. Its like a weird leather club chair parade. Its our TV room when we aren’t watching something on the projector in the living room, so we just shoved these chairs in here for now.
I feel like I have a lot of ‘splaining to do, but basically its ‘that room’. The room that holds all the random pieces that need to be dealt with. And the cat bed, apparently.
We have ordered a big old comfy sectional (more on that later, obviously), but besides that I just know that that rug is too big (and too plush to be that close to the kitchen).
Every day we try to decide whether we should keep this TV in there OR mount our awesome projector and project that on the blank wall. The pros to the TV are that it just seems easier because technology intimidates me and having a projector seems like lots of remotes or something. But we use the projector in the living room and its so easy and great and fun (and very clear, by the way, its like having an imax in your living room especially when you have a blue ray disc). Why don’t we just keep it in the living room, you ask? Well, we would like to install sconces and someday hang art so we can’t just leave those walls blank forever.
The other reason we are more inclined to use it here is because the sectional will end up being further away from the tv than we are used to so we feel like we need a bigger TV already in here and this one is pretty huge. And you can make the projected screen really big, so thats awesome.
The goal for this room is as follows: comfortable, kid/family friendly, easy to be in, relaxed, simple and always happy. I mean, thats really the goal for the whole house (despite the cement stairs and the metal railings everywhere :)) but this room in particular needs to be family friendly. It was a very good idea to live in the house before we dictated what we should do with the main spaces. We already realized that this room is the room. It shares the space with the kitchen so despite the fact that the living room is wildly prettier, this room is so convenient to hang out it. I cook my weekly chicken soup whilst watching Revenge whilst Charlie is sitting in a bouncer ignoring the fact that I have no idea how to cook. He’s already good at humoring me and I appreciate that in an infant.
I’m not going to over-design this room: comfort is its thing. And blue might be involved. I’m a predictable animal like that.
There is a big wall in there behind the sofa and I, with my growing motherhood sentimentality, am going to do a huge family/friend photo wall. Its going to be epic – spanning decades, generations, events, friend groups and emotions. I’m so excited to get started on it. Tears will be shed just sorting through the photos. Don’t worry, i’ll get it on camera.
So, that update wasn’t really much of an update, but rather awesome furniture gone wrong. But stay tuned, our sofa arrives in a week and then stuffs going to get real in there .. in a family way.
For more updates check out the master bedroom progress, living room progress, nursery progress and the deck progress.