Feb 18, 20153 min read

A Cozy Living Room For A Family Of Five

Hello my Lovelies!

I have another great room tour for you today…..actually, a few rooms. Yay! Goody goody gum drops!! I know how much you guys love room tours! 🙂 🙂

You remember the wonderful family I mentioned recently who just moved here from Canada, and hired me to give them a “Calm and Serene Dining Room Makeover”? You can click the link to learn more about that. Well, they also had me do the entire main area of their home. Today we will be taking a tour of the living room, foyer area, the breakfast area, and kids’ play area.

Are you ready to get started?

My clients already owned most of the pieces including the brown leather sofas and the coffee table, and they really wanted to keep them all. They also already owned the breakfast room table and chairs and the furniture in the kids’ play area.

The living room was pretty sparse when I first met the couple. The room needed a focal point and a way to emphasize the beautiful high ceilings. There was a massive recessed niche in the main wall that was crying out for a built-in unit. The windows were very naked…..which you all know is a big NO NO in my book 🙂 . The windows needed privacy and a way to block the afternoon sun, but still be open to look at the great views of their swimming pool and the golf course beyond.

Here is the space BEFORE

BEFORE – Window Wall

This is the main window wall. You can see that privacy is sorely lacking. What I did here was adding roller shades to address the need for privacy. The top windows were outfitted with motorized roman shades with a remote control, and the bottom windows were given manual roller shades to keep our budget in check. Then I added a layer of decorative drapery panels in a beautiful semi-sheer linen fabric to emphasize the high ceilings and frame the view.

You can see the AFTER shot of the window wall above.

Next I had to address the large wall niche that was crying for help

BEFORE

To make matters worse with this wall niche, it was painted in an accent color which drew a lot of attention to its nothingness. It kinda felt like a vortex that was sucking you into a black hole 🙂 Ok, that was mean, but that is exactly how I described it to my clients. Don’t worry, they have a great sense of humor.

I designed and had a built-in media center/bookcase custom built that adds a great architectural detail in this vast space. The built-in also added some much needed storage in the room

It was painted in white to match the existing fireplace mantel.

I brought in the two club chairs to add extra seating in the room. The striped ottoman was added to round out the seating area. I also added a new area rug to ground the furniture in this large room.

My clients already owned the large art above the mantel and wanted to keep it in the room. However, she didn’t want a ton of color in the room, so I added a tiny bit of orange accents in the bookcase to set off the art work.

Here’s the view of the other side of the room

The breakfast area was given new roller shades, drapery panels, roman shades on the French door and a new light fixture.

These are non-functional roman shades made to look like functional roman shades on the French door. They are basically valances. I chose this beautiful geometric linen fabric that my client loves. You will notice the bottom layer of roller shades for privacy and blocking the sun. They roll all the way up and out of sight.

A bit of photo styling here 🙂

The children’s play room was given a fresher look by replacing the window treatments and a bit of organizing.

Here’s a BEFORE shot

BEFORE

And here it is AFTER

Our new light fixture did not make it in time for the installation, so you are looking at the world’s ugliest fan 🙂

Now for the final space: The foyer. There wasn’t much to this space. It was just a totally blank slate that needed major attention. It is the very first space you walk into. My clients wanted to keep it simple but memorable.

Here it is BEFORE

This is what I did in the foyer

I brought in a concrete top round table that fits perfectly in the area by the stairs. A pair of ceramic garden stools adds a bit of visual interest, and the gorgeous vase of faux forsythia adds a pop of color. Simple drama!

Here’s another shot

So this is the space complete!

And like any good Designer, I couldn’t resist doing a little something something in the powder room nearby.

I had to have these urchins 🙂