My Living Room Transformation

This photo is sharing when I added pot lights into our dark dungeon of a living room.  When you are in the middle of winter and it gets dark at 4:00pm  You need to have good lighting!  I love the look!  You can see the two empty holes of where the two lights originally were but they would just shoot down on top of the TV.  The owners before had art work there and then the TV sat on top of the corner/angles cabinet. So low.  I didn’t like the idea of that since I have kids. Mounting was just safer.  So we got rid of those lights all together.

This console table was the very first purchase I made for the living room.  Once I knew the lay of the land and the floor plan that best fits the space to be used as a family room.  I knew I wanted a long table for this very long wall.  I saw this one at Winners and knew I hated the color but also knew I could fix that!  I believe I paid around $200 for it on clearance which was a huge contrast to the $800-$1200 I was seeing all over the place for such a long table.

Here I have newly painted the table with a linen color keeping the detail of the table as I thought it brought interest.  I kept the green color for the inside of the doors as well for a fun pop.  And to make do with what I had at the time I painted a older wooden dresser mirror and hung it over to reflect the light from the window.  I love the effect it gives when you are looking into the room from the kitchen.  Here I was deciding if I wanted to keep the mirrors top spindle or not.  I loved that the width of the mirror centered perfectly with the tables middle wooden spindles.

After I got the table squared away I needed to find the right sized chairs that could go on either side.

Here I am showing the angle of the entrance because I was concerned that the chair size needed to be just right not to block the flow of the entrance.  You can also see here the brown couches we had in here for the first year.  I sadly can’t find any other images of the way we had them.  But it was a love seat and a three seater sofa bed.  They didn’t fit the space at all so we pushed them up against each other in the corners of the room to mimic the shape of a sectional.  I also placed the furniture this way to sort of test it out and see if I could live with it that way or if I wanted to do a more stylish lay out.  Because lets face it…Sectionals don’t always make for stylish rooms.  And I have a problem with moving rooms all around and you can’t necessarily do that in this room when you have a sectional that fits on the one wall.

 

Here I was feeling very very proud of how the room was really coming together and transforming!  I scored these very old and vintage chairs from Hotel Saskatchewan Autograph collections renovations.  I was told they are about $1000 each to reupholster which is just not possible at the moment so I am choosing to layer them with these furry throws to hide the damaged fabric.  These chairs are so solid so in the mean time I will hold on to them.  Using what I had I added these candle scones on either side and the huge floral arrangement in the middle.  We inherited the coffee table from Brendan’s Grandparents.  I was still lacking a lot of the essential items to fill a book case so I have left them empty until I could clear my head long enough to form a plan.

It was always my plan to add two tall lamps in here but was holding out on what spoke to me. Originally I was looking for a blue and white pattern for a more traditional look.  When I saw these at Home Sense though I KNEW I loved them. I like how clean the silhouette is and the tone of gold is perfection.  I also finally purchased a couple of the furry throws to layer on the chairs mostly to hide the gross fabric.

 

 

And the Transformation:

 

In my past room reveals/transformations I have ended with a wish list of what my vision for the room ultimately is. Thought I would stay consistent with that here as well.

So first for the built ins. Painting them white from black has made such a HUGE impact on the room in general.  But this is a temporary solution as I really do want these to be changed.  The bottom cabinets which I love are at a slant/angle which takes up unnecessary square footage and I hate a waste of space. They were built this way on top of the hardwood so I can actually have this fixed quite easily.  I want them brought up to the ceiling with molding and  a different mantle.  I love the look of built ins that have light in each cubicle.  So yeah, a new built in at some point!

The fireplace.  Since painting it this sticks out to my eye like a sore thumb.  But its granite!  At some point I will want to do a total refresh here and even get a newer fireplace that\s a bit bigger looking but same size if that makes sense. Along with switching out the stone.  I am going to do a quick fix here and use some Marble Smart Tile that is adhesive and just stick it on top.  This is a project for January though!

I will eventually figure out what fabric or what color chairs I like for this room but in the mean time this works.  I am on the hunt for a gold finish coffee table or a vintage marble find.

And lastly…I want a low pile, viscose material traditional style rug with a bit of color but not too much!