OOOOOOH my gosh! The time has finally come. C and I literally started this project right before October 1, 2021 last year (he was less than enthused haha but he knew we needed to rearrange some things to liven up the room). Let me start from the beginning while trying to keep it somewhat brief.
For those of you who are new or don’t know, C and I have been together for almost 17 years. We moved in together “officially” in between year 3 and 4. Before that, I was in college and living at home, and him on his own in a bachelor pad type situation. We started accumulating “our” furniture around that time, which was found via liquidation warehouses, surfing Craig’s List, taking hand me downs from my mom’s boss (which we were so grateful for), and building some things on our own to fill in the gaps. When we bought our house in 2014, we still didn’t have the means to splurge on furniture but our family was growing and we needed some sturdier, well made pieces. We still went the discount route (which to this day, I’m a big advocate of over buying brand-brand-new), but again, it wasn’t really our desired taste.
Last year we saved up and embarked on fixing up this room to make it lighter and brighter. We weren’t fully ready to make a big purchase on a new couch, coffee table, and the like, so we made do with what we had. C painted the coffee table that he hand crafted 6 years earlier, that was a dark stain, to white and gray to match our kitchen (which is right off of our family room). We added this wallpaper – which was very inexpensive, and I used the money I had saved up from my business to buy the media console. We sold our entertainment center (which was passed down from my mom) because the wood was really making the room so much darker, and we wanted to free up the wall space. The console is short in height but doesn’t take up a lot of walking room which has been great with a lot of people in this space now. It has sliding doors on it and about 8 different shelves where we can store board games, extra coffee table books, and even diapers!!!! It might be one of my fave pieces in the room!
We continued to work on this room on weekends, which are busy with 4 kids, so it was just kind of here and there before a soccer or basketball game which also made this project take that much more time. One day in December, C surprised me and had our 75″ Frame TV delivered – I was totally NOT expecting this. We’ve never had a TV this nice OR big before – ever – as it was a really big purchase. This would bring us together more as a family to gather when we have movie nights so we justified the expense. We hung it before Christmas and I’ll never forget last holiday season enjoying our fave holiday movies and drinking hot chocolate.
C built these beautiful natural floating shelves. I’ve seen similar at Target and World Market but to buy 6 of them would’ve been a hefty buy. Wood is obviously not cheap in this pandemic, but we were able to save a little bit by making these ourselves. I was beyond excited to be able to style and decorate these beauties – I always imagined us having them one day, so it was definitely a pinch me moment when it came. Many of the wood frames on these shelves are the same ones I’m always sharing about – they are so clean looking and really classic. They truly go in any room!
We switched out our dark ceiling fan for this more modern one, and hung these 16×20 poster frames of our kids on a trip to Flagstaff last summer. C used his iPhone 12 to capture these shots and it blows me away how good they came out. I LOVE having these in our main fam room now, too. We also ended up painting the window coverings that C made back in 2015 – they were a dark stain as well and now the room looks so much lighter with this change as well.
This project kind of stalled out and we thought we were done for months on end – I thought I might get this post up over the spring or even summer, but there was kind of one more thing I hoped we’d be able to do when the time was right. Our couch was about 7 years old as we got it around the time we were having Cole, and while it was still in decent shape, it really didn’t fit our family of 6 now. It was also a deep chocolate brown, and the whole vibe of the room had really shifted to a bright and airy look.
We also had originally a cream colored rug in this room, and I wanted to stay in that genre since pure white is hard with kids. Here’s my tip: don’t be afraid of light colored rugs! I tend to avoid 100% white but go with creams, beiges, and rugs with patterns or designs. Dirt and spots will happen, but patterns help hide things so that you don’t have to compromise on a lighter color! I found this one that I felt complimented the throw pillows and wallpaper.
On a whim one weekend in August, we ventured out to our fave discount furniture store here (AFW) and looked around. We saw one that was definitely large enough to fit us all, but wanted to check a few more stores. The sales associate there asked if we were going to go to Living Spaces, and it wasn’t even on our radar. We decided to pop in – I always had this thought in my mind that it was super overpriced. Well, I was wrong! They do have lots of home designer brands in there, but the price points are not outrageous at all. Right when we walked in, we immediately gravitated toward the first couch right in front of us – it was this large, stone colored sectional. We all melted into it and C was like, ‘we should get this if we can fit it!’ We did some measurements and we were so pleased to learn that pretty much everything on their show room floor they have in stock and able to deliver within 2 days. We were pretty much sold at that point and so excited to have this in our main living space!
In order to accommodate such a larger couch than what we had before, we had to sell our electric fireplace (sad moment, this was found on sale at Big Lots by me about 7 years ago, and we DIY’d it and gave it a little love even more recently by adding a natural mantle to the front of it) and either sell or move our coffee table C had built that we just fixed up as well. I knew I couldn’t part with the table as this piece is really sentimental to me – so we moved it to our loft and sold the previous coffee table (which was the cool one with the lift up top!) we had in there on FB marketplace. I didn’t want to part with that one either, but I could not let go of this handmade table and it actually totally fits our loft space even better than the one before. I also sold the fireplace which was hard to do, but we had absolutely no room for it so it had to go.
The couch now goes along that wall where our fireplace was, and I added this mirror and another floating shelf that I actually purchased from Etsy. C could’ve totally built another one like the ones we have on the adjacent wall, however, he is so busy and pressed for time. This was just a lot easier to buy and have it delivered. I wanted another personalized touch to the room, so I had this light up sign made (if you’re in the market for one, I highly recommend getting the dimmer and remote on it – makes it SO much easier to have on and not have your eyes hurt from the brightness of the light!). I added these large throw pillows in black and then these smaller tufted-esque ones to compliment them. The kids really love these pillows and getting comfy on the couch with them and a soft throw blanket when we’re all relaxing.
I kept a lot of our faux plants and planters that we had in the room previously. I added these lidded baskets from World Market to hide our blankets and baby toys which was a game changer.
The last thing we did was add a round drum coffee table to the room. I honestly really wanted to leave the space open, especially with Colly still only crawling, but it was hard for us to not have somewhere to set our drinks down or have a little storage space for the remotes.
C and I talk about once a week how this room has really made such a difference with our family lately. Now when they get home from sports, we relax a little bit all together before going to bed, where as before we might just travel upstairs and all do our own things. This room really has brought us all so much closer, and we couldn’t be happier!
What do you guys want to see next? I have our loft refresh, living room refresh, laundry room refresh, and my officespace still to share with you all!! Let me know in the comments!
