Hi all, I'm new here and I'm hoping someone can give me a bit of advice. My wife and I are about to purchase our first home. The house we are in process of closing on is amazing and huge! In fact some of the spaces in the house are a tad bit for us - right now it's just the two of us with a baby on the way. I'm really stumped on the living room. It's very large in size (19' x 27.5') - it also has a wood burning fireplace at one end of the room, 4 short windows on the back side of the room, with a set of double doors between the windows leading to the patio. I am trying to find an arrangement for the room that will have our TV over the fireplace, making the fireplace and the TV the focus of the room - problem is that we are moving from an apartment with apartment sized furniture :-? and closing on the house is draining our bank accounts quickly. I'm attaching three photo's - the first is a photo of the room, and the second two are to scale diagrams of the room - one with our existing furniture, and one with out. We are looking to re-paint all of the interior walls as well when we move in, but are still debating color choices. Any suggestions? Living Room ( photo / image / picture from rellerton's Garden ) Diag_W_Furniture ( photo / image / picture from rellerton's Garden ) Diag_Empty ( photo / image / picture from rellerton's Garden )
The room begs for large pieces of furniture...and if you paint the walls a darker color the room won't look to big. I would hang curtains from the ceiling to the floor. I think it makes it cozier. What is quite popular now is to hang the flat screen TV over the fire place. Have fun with it.
The kitchen door on the left, is that the area of the kitchen where a dinette will be placed? I would think you could highlight that door as the main entrance to the kitchen because it appears that the other door enters the kitchen in the middle of the work area. I would create the illusion of a 'hallway' from the kitchen door on the right by adding a chair and small table between the love seat and the fireplace. Not lined up but set back just a bit, at an angle that has the chair facing towards the sofa and away from the fireplace. It could be a rocking chair or a glider-rocker for after the baby comes. A bookcase on the wall that is at a right angle to the kitchen entrance on the right. A storage bench under the windows between the double doors and the kitchen entrance, maybe with a pretty cushion for more seating and to store the little one's toys when that time comes. With a baby who will be crawling in about a year (you didn't say when the baby is due so that time period is a guess) floor length curtains at those windows might be too much of a temptation for little hands to pull on, so I am thinking curtains that come down to just below the window sill. In the corner behind the sofa by the windows, create another seating area with a smallish table and a couple of comfy chairs. That would be a good place for reading or playing board games or visiting with someone while another family member is watching TV. Is that the front door opening on that wall directly opposite the fireplace? If so, then a sofa table behind the sofa would be a good for placing the mail, her purse/your keys, etc. when you come in the front door. Also, photos of the baby need to have a prominent place for display too. To the right of that door space, maybe a closed cabinet that could hold DVDs or music CDs. If you have a DVD or BlueRay player, or stereo, maybe hanging some decorative shelves in one or both of the niches on either side of the fireplace could hold those units, easy to reach for you but not for the little one. What color is your furniture? What color(s) do you and your wife like? The wall color doesn't have to 'match' the furniture but could be a coordinating color....anything but stark white Extra pieces of furniture that you want to fill in the room can be found for good prices at thrift stores or consignment stores. Are there still St. Vincent de Paul stores in Florida? I used to live in West Palm Beach and there was one not too far away that sold very nice furniture and other items, for a good price. Whatever you decide to do, please let us see photos of the results.
I would use cottage blinds...no drapes. You are in FL...let the sun in! The room is large enough to handle a dark color. I would move the sofa grouping back, as you have a good eight feet behind it. You could even angle it in the room. I would also use a vary large area rug to pull the room together. If you are undecided about paint colors, you might search for the sofa, rug and large pieces and then pull the wall color from them. Have fun with it and enjoy! Please be sure and post your final pictures.
I would not use long heavy drapes either and would have a nice window seat(centered) and built for in front of that window, extra seating for the room, and that rear wall or corner would make a great office space, a real attractive hutch type computer station etc.
Congrats on your new home! It looks real nice. If I were you, I wouldn't stress about getting it decorated perfectly right away, especially since your budget for that may be tight. Just enjoy being there!! The ideas will come to you as you settle in. It could definitely use some color. Think of the colors that you love the most, and make you feel "at Home"
Thanks for all the input. We unfortunately don't have the spare cash right away to buy new/larger furniture and our current couches are a dark olive. My wife hates our couches, but we don't have much of a choice right now. I am definitely planning on putting our flat screen over the fireplace, and the attic lends well to doing 5.1 audio plus there is an abundance of cabinet space in the kitchen. The current plan is to put all of the AV components in the cabinets on the other side of the wall from the fireplace - that may sound a bit complicated, but I'm not worried about that part - I actually do home theater installation for a living so that's the easy part. My main with that part of it is getting the couch placement set since I'l probably going to do in ceiling speakers for the rears and placement is sort of permanent. I like the idea of doing floor length curtains, but Toni is right - that could end badly with the baby due so soon (late July, we don't even know the sex yet :-D ). We both like earthy colors - our current place is a dark beige with carpet that is only slightly darker than the carpet in the photo of the new house with white trim all around. I personally like the idea of sticking with one color for all the interior walls (I know, I'm boring) and then working from there later on if we want to re-paint a particular room, but this isn't a must. Also, all the cabinets in the house are a flat white as well - that will have the change, but we won't be able to do that for a while after move in. Between the two of us we do have a large DVD collection, and I considered building a custom rack for them, or getting a large pre-made rack for one of the walls. I also like the idea of having a window seat, and my in-laws are getting my wife a rocker recliner for her and the baby once we get moved in too - so that will take care of some of the space. My biggest worry is the large amount of empty space behind the couches in the living room. While the idea of making an office area is great there are two other rooms in the house that lend themselves to this fairly well, and I'm pretty sure she is giving me one of them to make a den/office :-D - so I'm still stuck on the living room. I played around with photoshop a bit to try some color choices, below are some of our favorites. Thoughts? Also - I left the trim white, and I'm not sure if it's worth changing. Living_Room_Beige ( photo / image / picture from rellerton's Garden ) Living_Room_Blue ( photo / image / picture from rellerton's Garden ) Living_Room_Coal ( photo / image / picture from rellerton's Garden )
Thats neat how you changed the color! Can you do an earthy shade of green? Now, I am no decorator, and maybe this is silly, but all gardeners would love to fill up space in a big room with plants and maybe thats not going to work for you with a little one on the way... but I raised 3 kids and always had houseplants everywhere. Still do
I like the blue you mocked up! When I am designing a space like this for a client, I break the room into zones. I don't know if you have a formal dining room. If you don't, then I would create one in front of the fireplace. A baby probably wouldn't be playing in the dining room, and the hearth you have could be dangerous for a little one to fall over. Then I would rotate the furniture grouping so that the back is along the windows, but still with space behind to walk and maybe for a console table. (The TV being opposite the windows to the right of that doorway into the other room. The two zones (dining and living space) would feel really good in this space. If you still feel like it's too big, then paint the ceiling a couple shades darker than it is. (Like a light chocolate or caramel color). This will visually lower the ceiling making it feel smaller. As for window treatments, if you decide on longer panels, then hang panels intermittently in the middle of the wall of windows. This will break up that expanse of wall and the segments will help it feel less expansive. Even though your furniture is smaller in scale, there is plenty you can do to make the space appear smaller. Good luck!
Closed on the house and started working! We closed on the house a little over a week ago, and have been working non stop on it - painting a 2700 Sq Ft home is not the most fun. We did decide on a color finally - it's called "Painted Desert Sand" - but it's basically a brown/dark tan. As we more more in to the process I'll post some pictures of how it's turning out!
Congrats! both on buying your house and picking a color. My two cents are that you should not paint everything the same color. One color doesn't provide the interest you're looking for. You can do a lot with paint even without furniture. With the paint color you have chosen for the living room, you can pick a slightly darker color or a complimentary color to paint the dining room with. You can even paint another version of it in the kitchen. Distinguishing these rooms will bring the large scale down somewhat and not look like the room of doors. It can define and give purpose to each direction. Put a sofa table behind the sofa to 'anchor' it. Get some family photos; enlarge and frame them with the same basic small black or white frame and put them on the wall to the right as you enter the living room. This will add to filling the space and provide a lot of interest. People love looking at photos. I wouldn't put long panels or drapes on the windows. You can really have much more fun with inside-mount blinds of various materials, grasses, etc. that are beautiful and to achieve many light and privacy functions. They also add lots of interest and a bit of sophistication with the right choice. We're all anxious to see what you come up with, so don't forget the 'after' photos!
