Dear Chicago House,
Your family room was brown, dark and just not very inviting at all.
Here you are in all your former owners glory. They seem to have a thing about having all their furniture pushed up against the walls or in the corners of the room and paid no attention to how the room would flow and feel friendly. I mean look at this picture…do you think they needed that big expanse of rug to practice forward rolls? And just look at all that junk on your mantle. ( picture note: this photo was taken by a realtor with a very wide angle lens – making your room look much bigger than you actually are..tricks of the trade I suppose!)
And here you are empty all brown and horrid. I have to say this was one of your rooms I was most worried about furnishing and decorating (even more so than your dungeon basement)
You were a challenging room. You have five, yes FIVE, doors/openings to other rooms and two points of focus, the fireplace and the TV … you can see all the TV cable wires hanging out the wall.
So are you ready to see yourself after some makeover magic?
Here we go.
You have had all your brown trim painted a crisp white and your walls the softest green. After a lot of furniture dilemmas and sticking blue painters tape on the wall to try out scenarios it seemed a sectional was going to work best, but the dimension you presented us with meant there was considerable shopping around to find the right one.
The room is such a cozy place to be on crazy snowy Chicago nights and a nice escape from from your occasional hot days!
Love from
Creative in Chicago
XXX
Linking with
Love what you did with the place! What a difference. It feels so much lighter and brighter!
Lovely, see we can make monster sofas work.
Thanks for stopping by my blog,
Cha Cha
Wow. what a lovely home to buy. Makes indeed great before/after pics… Kind of like vacuuming a dirty floor oin a lovely room… Very satisfying and oh so wonderful results.
You're doing great, gal! Love every bit of light/white you're bringing in as it does the house so much good.
I really like your paint color.
Simple looking at the Realtor photo, I would have liked the room as it was – sorta of rustic cabin. But, if it's small in real life, I can imagine how dark and oppressive it could feel. I bet the light paint really lifts your spirits!
It's a great room!
~ Dana
Cooking at Cafe D
Hi Dana … the paint really does lighten the room. When I move in the entire house was painted shades of brown and I felt I couldn't breathe. All the trim is now white and I am slowly getting some color on the walls. I am going to tackle my office next which has a huge vaulted ceiling …sorta put this room off you know how it is!
The room looks great! What type of rug is that? Is it frieze?
Yes the rug is frieze, we a piece of carpet cut and bound to our exact measurements.