Family Room Updates

Well, the intent of this post was to link up with a blog party a week ago, but seeing as how I can barely keep us in clean clothes and dishes these days, I'm just going to post it now by myself.  

I haven't really posted any before or afters of our house on here.  We bought our house from a family member, and that can be a sensitive situation when you start completely redoing things.  But it's been almost two years since we got the keys, and I want to begin showing some of our progress.  Pretty much none of the rooms are completely finished yet, but we've made significant progress on most of them.  

Our family room/playroom is open to the kitchen (it's one long bowling alley room).  We have a bigger TV and our nice couch in the basement den, but we spend a lot of time in here (probably because of the toys).  

Here is the before – the day we got the keys.  You walk in our back door at the kitchen and see the family room beyond.   

And here it is just a few weeks ago when it was all clean for company. 

Basically I have found everything for this room because our existing (good) couch from our old house is downstairs in the basement with the big TV.  Accumulating furniture is an adventure when you go from 900 sqft to roughly 3400 sqft.  My final vision is to ditch the green accents have it be white, beige, chocolate, wood tones, with red accents and the occasional touch of orange, aqua, and yellow.

Things we have done:

• Painted the walls (twice, first time just to get rid of the green, second time once I finally figured out what color I wanted).  They are currently Valspar’s Moose Mousse. 
•  Built the toy storage shelves from this Ana White plan, modifying slightly to fit my existing baskets.  They are painted Martha Stewart’s Glass of Milk.

• Got a hand-me-down loveseat (it was free)
•  Bought a wingback recliner at Goodwill for $11 
• Got my old play table and chairs from Mom & Dad’s basement for Sam to use 
• Painted an old frame we had and added a chalkboard to it (plywood painted with chalkboard paint)

• Removed vertical blinds and shelf and added fruitwood blinds from Home Depot 
• Sewed proper curtains from white linen-look fabric after using twin sheets as curtains 
• Painted a Goodwill end table red – it works for now 
• Since the pictures, we removed the fluorescent light and added a ceiling fan with light – it helps with air circulation immensely, and no more fluorescent humming!

What I still want/need to do:

• Move the pictures on the end wall down a few inches – yes, after I just filled holes, painted, and drilled new holes and anchors for them a month ago.  I am nothing if not intelligent.  Actually, I didn’t have a problem with their height until we installed the ceiling fan and it cut off the view of the top of the clock.  And update the pictures in the frames.  
• Get an IKEA sofa to replace the loveseat (in white slipcover) 
• Reupholster the wingback in drop cloth with red feed sack stripes similar to this Pottery Barn chair (they don't have the feedsack stripe available anymore).  I'm terrified to do it myself but have read that it would cost WAY too much to have it done for me.
• Get a rug.  I’m having trouble deciding what size – do we really need an 8x10 or could we get by with a 5x7?  The room is narrow (maybe 12w x16L "ish"), and really I just want a cushy space for playing with toys on the floor.  
• Stencil the curtains with this stencil from Royal Design Studio.  I saw some “text” and “poem” curtains on blogs but know I would never be able to keep my handwriting that neat or stable.  I’m going to wait until I get a few other things done first though so I can make sure I still want the stencil later on. 
• Paint the end table by the wingback.  It’s an old end table/magazine rack that has been at my parents’ house as long as I remember.  But it has dings and I think the beaded trim would show off better painted a robin’s egg blue and distressed.  
• Once we get the sofa, build/find end tables to go on either end.  That’ll mean moving the kiddie table, which is fine.  Everything in this room is basically in a state of flux. 
• Eventually, at some point long down the road, I would love to build a faux corner fireplace and mount a flat-screen TV on top.  I’d use the open space at the bottom for a toy basket or seasonal décor.  I am convinced it would look fantastic from both the front and back doors (you see that corner from both).  Convincing hubby will take a few years.  
• One day (in my dreams) I’d love to knock the wall behind the sofa into a half wall with a column at the far end.  It would look into the stairwell then.  I just feel like it would open up the room that much more and make it feel less narrow, aid with air circulation and all that.

That looks like a long list, but I think it’s mostly my oversharing details.  I tend to do that.  Seriously, it’s a far cry from just last summer when the only things in the room were my college TV (which has since died), a swivel rocker (in another room now), toy baskets on the floor, and the kiddie table and chairs.  While it’s not my final vision yet, it’s definitely coming along and at least looks halfway presentable now.  Not too shabby, no?