I thought I'd share a little progress update on our family room! I keep holding off on posting about the house because not a single room is "done" - the downside of the way I shop + style the house (piece by piece as I find them vs. room by room) means that I very rarely "finish" a room. Or at least it feels like that! Anyway I figured progress is progress and now that I'm looking at the "before" photos from the listing, we've gotten a good start!
Chris and I immediately fell in love with this house for two reasons- it was METICULOUSLY maintained (i.e. even the water filter in the fridge was labeled and dated...) and it had great bones. We knew we'd want to add our own touches anyway so we were really looking for a house that had all of the expensive mechanicals (newer roof, windows, central air, etc.) instead of something that had been cosmetically updated. Our town is full of mostly older homes and the market is pretty hot, so most of what we saw was staged to sell but once you looked past paint color and refaced cabinets needed a lot of work. OR, they were just old AND dated and that was more than we could take on for our first home. When we found this one were we JAZZED - we are only the third owners (both previous owners lived here for 30+ years) and while the home needs updating they had maintained the home and done everything the "right" way. Just the foundation we were looking for!
Anyway, one of the first rooms that we tackled was the family room. 80% of the wood trim in the home had already been painted white but the back of the house (family room addition, office, and kitchen) was still original. The wall colors were also really warm - peach, cantaloupe, and yellow dominated the first floor. The ceiling is really high but the harsh lines of the wood trim made the room feel small:
We paid someone (Seamus Painting if you live in the area - Paul is THE. BEST. I am very OCD so you can trust me!) to paint this room because we wanted the trim done with oil-based paint to prevent future bleed-through. Well worth it in the long run but it is a mess to paint with and to clean up - so we left it to the pro's.
Just the paint alone really brightened things up and made it feel like an entirely new room - here is the after!
God that brown fan is killing me. We bought a new TV stand from an IKEA and a new couch (only because our old one didn't fit!) but other than that all of the furniture here is a hodge podge of stuff we had from our old apartments. That Crate + Barrel coffee table has lived many lives and had many identities (bench/table/coffee table etc.) and it's still kickin'!
The leather chair was a hand-me-down from a family friend and the end table with the drawer was Chris' table from HIGH SCHOOL that I re-painted. The bureau was a media center from Bob's Discount - I will replace the handles at some point but I haven't gotten around to it yet.
We still need window treatments, a rug, and throw pillows that make actual sense but it's getting there!
Wall color is Benjamin Moore Edgecomb Grey, trim is Simply Wall to match the rest of the house.