Great Room Makeover Reveal: 90% Complete!

Did you ever have a home decor project that was about 90% complete, and you just couldn’t seem to finish it? This is the story of our great room makeover project.

This room is the heart of our home, and the epi-center of our whole home redesign, so I’ve really felt the pressure to get it right. It has definitely been an uphill battle to get this project accomplished. At times, the project has made me feel like repeatedly banging my head against a wall for reasons I’ll explain in a minute.

Despite the challenges and painfully slow progress, I’m really stoked about the changes that have taken place in this room over the past year, and desperately want to share them with you! So…even though it’s not quite finished or perfect, I’m moving forward with the reveal.

Ready???

You can see the great room straight ahead when you enter through the front door:

Before we take a closer look at the room in it’s new and improved state, let’s review what the great room looked like before the redesign.

GREAT ROOM MAKEOVER: WHERE WE STARTED

As you can see, the room really has some great architectural bones to work with…18 foot ceilings, a really pretty fireplace surround, and so much natural light.

But if I had to sum up the state of the room immediately before we started the redesign process, I’d use the phrase “Identity Crisis”.

The room was still sporting the old red/green/gold color scheme. I guess I was hoping to make that outdated color scheme just disappear by throwing in accent pieces from the new color palette. Needless to say, that didn’t happen. I was just left with a room that lacked cohesiveness.

As far as furniture goes, this room had 2 big problems.

First, there was the issue of furniture placement. Since Day 1, our furniture placement decisions in this home have been dictated on kids’ needs, instead of design principles/aesthetic. When we moved into our home 11 years ago, we had an infant and toddler. So this space had to accommodate large plastic toys. The middle of the room served as a space for tiny, rambunctious kiddos to run around.

Now that the kids are older, I was ready to move the furniture away from the wall and create a more cozy furniture arrangement that would allow us to have conversations with one another and houseguests that wouldn’t require shouting across the room facilitate conversation.

The second issue with our furniture is that most of the pieces are over 15 years old. We purchased the sofa and oversized chair when we were first married (as well as the ancient TV that simply would not die). These pieces have served us well over the years, but it was definitely time to replace them.

We also decided that we could no longer wait for the TV to die a natural death, so it was time to put it out of its misery and be the last people on Earth to upgrade to a flatscreen. Of course, this meant bidding adieu to our TV armoire as well.

To sum it all up, our goals for the great room redesign were to:

• update outdated furniture pieces and electronics
• create a cohesive look with new paint color, furniture finishes, fabric, and accessories
• revamp the furniture layout to create a cozy conversation area
• transform the style of the space from formal/traditional to casual/contemporary
• make sure the room coordinated well with adjacent rooms (powder room, home office, dining room, kitchen and laundry room)
• replace stained/damaged carpeting with luxury vinyl plank flooring and a large area rug
• transform the existing wood-burning fireplace into a gas fireplace

REDESIGN “ROADBLOCKS” DURING OUR GREAT ROOM MAKEOVER

When it comes to home decorating decisions, I’ve been really lucky to have a spouse who generally agrees with my thoughts and wishes (or at times, just doesn’t care about the decision and simply defers to me).

As far as spousal consensus goes, it’s always been smooth sailing for us.

Up until this room.

When I presented my ideas for the redesigned space, I was met with strong resistance from my Brian. He was not on board with my desire to purchase a sectional sofa, or my proposed furniture rearrangement plan:

He didn’t like the idea of the sofa acting as a divider between the kitchen and the great room. Over the past 11 years, it seems he has grown quite fond of having the traffic pattern cut across the center of the room.

I taped off the carpet to outline where all of the new furniture pieces would fit, and showed him repeatedly that we’d just have to walk a few extra steps to navigate around the sectional.

Nope. He wasn’t going to budge on this one. So after a few months of deadlock, I conceded and gave up on my dream of a cozy conversation area. We agreed to essentially keep the current floor plan as is, and simply replace all of the existing pieces.

The interior designer in me knows that this is not the ideal space plan for the room, but it certainly wasn’t worth major marital conflict. 🙂

Once we successfully navigated that redesign hiccup, I assumed that the rest of the process would go smoothly.

Not so.

I had a devil of a time sourcing a set of shelves for what would become our “TV wall”. I was on the hunt for modern industrial shelving for what seemed like an eternity. After several months, I finally found the PERFECT shelving solution and happily placed my order. After waiting on those shelves for over 3 months, I contacted the customer service department of the online vendor, only to find out that the shelves had been back ordered for a year. 

A year. Say whaaaatttt?

Had I not made that phone call, I would have never known about the backorder issue. After many heated conversations with this company’s customer service reps, I finally managed to get a refund.

It was a sad day when I realized that we had lost months making headway on this redesign project because of this unfortunate situation. Worst of all…I had to go back to the drawing board and figure out a Plan B for this wall.

You know the saying that all bad things happen for a reason? Well, I believe it to be so. Otherwise, I would have never stumbled upon this option:

When I first laid eyes on this reclaimed elm & iron leaner shelving at Restoration Hardware, I just knew it was meant for our great room. Ironically, I also encountered extensive backorder issues with this purchase, but it was certainly worth the wait.

So let’s recap.

I began the redesign process for this space in August 2015, and as of the date of this post (14 months later), the project is about 90% complete. But I’m OK with that! If I wait until all the projects for this space are completed, it could be well over a year. I’m just too excited to delay sharing the transformation any longer!

GREAT ROOM MAKEOVER TOUR

Fair warning: this post is photo heavy. If you see something you like as we take our tour, rest assured that there’s a source list at the end of the post.

This is the view of our great room from the kitchen. Of course, we started our makeover by replacing that gold wall color with this gorgeous neutral that we used to repaint most of the main floor and upstairs hallway (you can see all the colors in our redesign paint color palette here).

Here’s a close up of the TV wall in all of it’s glory:

{notice those baskets on the center bottom shelf that I relocated from the laundry room?}

The leaner shelves were made with reclaimed elm wood from old barns and they are truly beautiful! I love the way that the zinc metal finish looks in the room:

Moving clockwise around the room, you’ll spot my latest scores from TJ Maxx. Gone is the dark wood nested table and brown lamp. In their place you’ll find this sleek contemporary duo:

I fell hard for the clean lines of this lamp, and the gorgeousness of this marble-top side table:

Although we didn’t agree on a sectional, my husband and I immediately agreed on our sofa choice — the PB Comfort slipcovered sofa. We wanted something cozy & kid-friendly that still fit the contemporary vibe that we were going for. This square-arm slipcovered sofa really fit the bill.

We also got rid of the worn out oversized storage ottoman and replaced it with this pair of fabric-covered storage cubes. These cubes serve multiple functions, including: blanket storage, a place to put up our feet during TV viewing, and/or a spot for drinks & remote controls.

If you view the room while standing in the foyer, you can immediately spot two of the items that still remain on our redesign To Do list:

1. Transforming our never-used woodburning fireplace into a gas fireplace

2. Replacing the oversized chair in the corner.

This chair has become a beloved fixture in our house. It’s home to my husband and our dog each night during prime TV viewing hours. Hubby is dragging his feet when it comes to replacing it, but I think he realizes that it’s time.

We kept the original curtain rods, but replaced the outdated red valences with these contemporary geometric-patterned curtain panels. When I spotted them, I was instantly smitten:

Do you remember this lamp from the BEFORE photos? Yep, it used to be brown. With a new white shade and a bit of spray paint magic, this stacked ball table lamp fits right in with the new look of the room:

Oh, and I also spray painted the accent table to transform it from brown to a satin nickel finish.

Moving upwards along the wall, you’ll spot our pretty fireplace surround that extends the entire height of our 18 foot wall. I love how these decorative wall plates fit perfectly inside the fireplace moulding and draw your eye up while adding a pop of that gorgeous navy blue color:

This summer, I accessorized the mantle with some fabulous new decorative lanterns:

Moving on to my favorite area of the room, there’s my new corner reading nook!

This pretty upholstered accent chair and ottoman create a perfect space to curl up and read (it will be infinitely better once we add a roaring fire and a floor lamp to the mix).

I’ve always wanted a Fiddle Leaf Fig plant. I love how it fills in the space in this corner; I’m crossing my fingers that I’ll be able to keep it happy, since this plant is notoriously difficult to keep alive.

I need to get cracking on finding a suitable floor lamp for this corner:

Wow. You’re a trooper for sticking with me through this epically long room reveal post. From this point forward, I’ll let the pictures do the talking:

So what’s left on our To Do list?

• replace oversized chair
• purchase a floor lamp for reading nook
• create a gallery wall above sofa
• replace carpeting with luxury vinyl plank flooring and a large area rug
• transform existing wood-burning fireplace into a gas fireplace

This project has been a challenge to say the least, but it’s also been a labor of love. And we’re thrilled with the way it’s turned out so far. What do you think? What’s your favorite feature of our great room makeover?

GREAT ROOM MAKEOVER SOURCE LIST

• Wall paint – Benjamin Moore’s Sweet Spring, eggshell finish
• Trim paint – Glidden’s Antique White, semi-gloss finish
• Shelving/Wall Unit – Restoration Hardware
• Sofa – Pottery Barn
• Marble Top Table – TJMaxx {similar alternatives}
• Laptop Table – World Market
• White Accent Chair – Wayfair
• Storage cubes – TJMaxx {similar alternative}
• Leather Ottoman – Pier 1
• Satin Nickel table lamp – TJMaxx {similar alternative}
• Stacked ball table lamp – TJMaxx {similar alternative}
• Decorative circle mirror – Homegoods {similar alternative}
• Curtain panels – Homegoods {similar alternative}
• Chrome/glass lanterns – No longer available {similar alternative}
• Ceramic lanterns – No Longer Available {similar alternative}
• Decorative wall medallions (above fireplace) – Target {similar alternative}
• Metal floor vase – No longer available {similar alternatives}
• Floral pillows – Society 6
• Embroidered pillow – Marshalls {similar alternative}
• Storage baskets – World Market
• White storage boxes – Ikea/Amazon

You can also check out my Great Room Redesign Pinterest Board for more home decor choices

Check out our whole home redesign progress to date in the My Home Refresh Series: