Reclaiming Home’s most recently completed project was a family TV room makeover. Jean’s son and daughter-in-law gave her a Design Plan gift certificate for Christmas and she chose to make over her small family room. It’s the room in the house for watching TV, reading, and relaxing. It is a tricky space because of the size and layout of the room. It is a long, narrow rectangle, with doorways on two walls and a fireplace on another. There was a large couch and a loveseat in the room that took up a lot of the available space. We set out to transform the room by reusing what Jean already owned, doing a fireplace makeover, building in shelving for their personal treasures and television, and buying new furniture.
The first thing we talked about was changing the fireplace. If you look at the before pictures you can see that the stone was very dark. I suggested painting it white. But that made Jean and her husband very nervous. So we compromised and I “whitewashed” the stone with much lighter stone colours instead. It brightened the fireplace up and made the stone look much more natural than it did before.
Jean’s husband Allan is very handy, and he sanded down the mantel and applied a lighter stain to it that matched the shelving we installed in the room. I finished styling out the fireplace with a mirror to bounce the light around the room, some family pictures, and personal treasures Jean and Allan wanted displayed. Family is very important to them and they had lots of family pictures up. Putting them in matching frames allowed them to be displayed in a cohesive way.
We also made big changes to the walls on either side of the fireplace. Before “we got to work” they had their TV on an older entertainment stand, and all their DVDs on a bookshelf. I recommended we add a ready-made cabinet to the right of the fireplace that we then hacked to look built-in. The cabinet holds all their DVDs and electronic gear. Then Allan mounted the TV on a swivel mount so it can be pulled out and angled for easy TV viewing.
For balance we added shelving to the left side of the fireplace. This created more display room and provided a side table for drinks and a lamp. We framed out the electronics cabinet with the same wood as the shelves to make it all cohesive. All of the pieces on the shelving Jean and Allan already owned. In fact, one of the reasons Jean wanted to redo this room was so she would have a place to display some of the items she really loved. The only accessories we bought for the fireplace wall were the baskets, the mirror above the fireplace, and the table lamp. Jean even already owned the beautiful plants on the shelves. By moving the TV against the wall and adding the shelving, we added much needed openness to the narrow space.
They knew they wanted to buy new couches before we started, so I recommended two loveseats from La-Z-Boy that fit the room much better than the old larger couch and loveseat did. By putting a smaller love seat where the sofa used to be, we were able to add the shelving on the fireplace wall and a side table.
We also changed the lighting in the room. I looked through the house to see if there were any items we could use in the space, and I found these amazing wooden table lamps. They were in the basement not being used. In order to update them, we switched out the lampshades. On the shelving, we added a small table lamp to balance the loveseat. Now there is nice light for reading throughout the space.
Jean really wanted pops of colour added to the TV room, while Allan wanted a more neutral space. So we compromised and added pops of colour in the accessories, keeping the main pieces neutral. The navy and rusted orange work so well together. They tie in with a lot of the special pieces they wanted to feature.
For more design inspiration and before & afters be sure to visit my Instagram page. https://www.instagram.com/reclaiminghomedecorating/
