Family Room One Room Challenge, Week I

Here we go again! It is the Spring 2020 One Room Challenge and I’m so excited to participate as a guest designer. This is my second time participating in the One Room Challenge and if you have missed my guest bedroom update from the Fall you can find it here. This years One Room Challenge is going to be tricky given the current situation with Covid-19 but I’m determined to make the best of the situation and the extra time we have been given this year. Typically the One Room Challenge is runs six weeks but this year two weeks have been added and the start of the challenge has been delayed for a month.

Onto the most important question. What room are we doing? I think I have spent several weeks debating this one as a couple of room were begging for love and attention. While it would have been more practical to tackle the master bathroom, I lost the battle when my husband informed me that he did not want to remove the clunky medicine cabinet and opt for the design beauty of just having a gorgeous mirror. Apparently, having shelves to store his bathroom accessories is more important to sleek design. So I moved on, and made a mental note to check on topic in a couple of months when the time came to choose a room for the Fall 2020 One Room Challenge. For this challenge, drum-roll…..we are updating the family room!

FAMILY ROOM? Is that the same as a living room you might be asking yourself. Yes and no. Depending on the house you live in and how you use the space. In the 17th century, living rooms started out as formal display spaces for welcoming guests, but slowly morphed into the more casual gathering spaces that we know today. We live in a colonial house where we have both. Our formal living room is very formal and not used frequently, basically only when we have big party’s. Go figure, we fully decorated a space that gets the least amount of use. Which bring my to our family room. Our family room looks just like a typical living room but it is a more relaxed space with a bunch of kid toys everywhere. This is also the space that our guest spend the most time in which motivated me to step it up and really make it nice for our guests but also functional for our two daughters.

Ok, if you read all the way to here then you must really be interested to see what the space look like now. Here it is:

OUR FAMILY ROOM

As you can see toys and kids have invaded this room and only this One Room Challenge may be able to help overcome the toys that appear to only be accumulating.

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The other side of the room leads to our backyard. This room did not always look like this. When we bought our house two years ago the fireplace looked completely black and instead of these nice french doors, there were some very old door. I was able to dig up an older photo of this room when we first bought the house.

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I don’t think anybody has seen the condition of this room before we moved because it was the first room we tackled before we even moved our furniture into the house. As you can see we updated the fireplace by tiling marble over the brick, we stained the floors dark, replaced the two doors leading to the backyard and painted the walls and ceilings. We have come a long way and I’m excited to finally continue updating this room and turn it into a room that we will love.

Inspiration

In the last six months have really been day dreaming about french traditional design. There is something so chic about Parisian aesthetic that it turns me into a wannabe french girl. The baroque mirror, the gold accents, the wall moulding, the modern/contemporary art, the sparkling chandeliers makes my just go ga ga for it all. French decor strives to accomplish a comfortable and home feel, while still being refined. Overstuffed couches and settees help with this, and the sectional in my family room is here to stay.

Here is a living room designed by David Jimenez that I have been drawn to. It is a photo I refer back to for art inspiration and warm colors.

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Another source of inspiration comes from image below that I found on Pinterest. The wall moulding here is absolutely stunning and I have become obsessed with wanting to add moulding in every room in our house.

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Finally this design by Kelly Wearstler really inspires me to add more patterns into my design.

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Here is my design concept that is not fully flushed out and subject to some change but the overall design aesthetic is solid.

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I’ll be sharing the entire renovation process via my Instagram stories and posting next weeks updates on the blog here. I hope you all are as excited as I am about this. It is certainly a welcome distraction from the news for me. Thank you for stopping by and I hope you check out next weeks progress!

Don’t forget to check out more amazing transformed rooms by the featured designers and guest participants over on the one room challenge blog. And a big thank you to Better Homes & Gardens for being the media partner for this event.