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Ranch House Redo | Family Room Update

Time to show you all of the updates we’ve made to the family room. It’s long overdue, there have been a whole lot of changes.
First things first, we painted! Or I should say the Mr painted 😉 We went with Benjamin Moore’s Amherst Gray and had it color-matched at Lowe’s using their no-voc Valspar paint in eggshell finish. The white is Benjamin Moore’s Decorator’s White, also color-matched in Valspar semi-gloss paint, which is what we’ve been painting the trim throughout the whole house, so we wanted to keep it uniform.
I really wanted to do a dark gray for the walls, but the fact that this room doesn’t get a lot of natural light made me pretty hesitant. So I came up with the idea of adding board and batten to the walls to break up the dark gray and keep the bottom half white. Talk about a last minute project. The Mr was pretty happy to oblige and we took our inspiration for the project from this how-to post on Decor Chick. Our’s ended up being a little more complicated because we wanted to match the trim and molding to the new mantel and built-in shelving. We bought all of the trim and molding pieces at Lowe’s and trimmed it to size at home.
You’ll recognize the stars on the mantel wall from this post: I made the star decals using my Silhouette Cameo (so fun). We haven’t quite decided how long the stars will stay up. They were perfect for the holiday season, but now that it’s over? We might take them down, I’m thinking it might be a tad too busy. 
The family room is mostly Arden’s (and Conrad’s) play space. Arden has her play table in here and she eats breakfasts and snacks here as well. We mounted a t.v. over the fireplace for Mickey Mouse Clubhouse marathons and Disney movies. 
Most of Arden’s toys have fit in her toybox (the kubu wicker trunk) until now, but she’s getting to the point where she’s all about arts and crafts, so A LOT more (organized) storage was needed. The new built-in shelves are perfect for storing toys within reach. We’ve been using them for a month or so now and Arden loves having her toys so readily available, but they weren’t staying organized and the shelves always looked messy. So I headed to Lowe’s and stocked up on a bunch of these great charcoal storage bins to keep toys hidden and easily organized.
The top shelves and smaller bins house smaller (lighter) toys, like puppets and stickers. The middle shelf on the left is Conrad’s space – all the younger toys are waiting patiently. The middle shelf on the right has Arden’s puzzles, pens, crayons and art supplies. This medium sized bin holds art paper, coloring books and sticker pads. The bottom shelves and bigger bins hold things like legos, building blocks and dress up clothes.
The shelves are super functional now and even though they aren’t styled with things I like (design books and decorative accessories) they’re perfect for the little ones, which is more important, right? 😉
Oh and the fireplace got a little update as well. While we were at Lowe’s picking up the storage bins we also bought this affordable fireplace screen and grate.
So this room is moving right along. Only a few more things on the ole’ To Do list, most notably, the sofa and the carpet. Can’t wait to get that sofa revamped. I’m thinking of using this Sunbrella fabric in graphite for easy cleaning. I have yet to order swatches though, I’d hate for the fabric to be too rough as this couch is super comfortable and makes for great napping. Have any of you used Sunbrella fabric on interior upholstery? What do you think of it?
TO DO

NEW PAINT

CREATE BUILT-INS ON EITHER SIDE OF THE FIREPLACE

UPDATE THE MANTEL


GET RID OF CHAISE AND OTTOMAN


REMOVE OLD HANDLES/BARS/HARDWARE

PAINT THE FIREPLACE
I think we’re going to leave the brick as is. It doesn’t bother me right now with the all of the new built-ins

NEW LIGHT FIXTURE
Done – Will blog about it soon 🙂

REUPHOLSTER SOFA

HANG ART ON THE WALLS
Haven’t even started thinking about this one yet. Art is so hard! For now we have the infamous ocean art print that came with the house hanging. So far this painting manages to wiggle its way into whatever room I’m working on at the moment.

REPLACE THE CARPETING
We were on our way to doing this with FLOR tiles, but discovered some laminate flooring underneath the carpet that may or may not be asbestos. *duh duh duuuuuh. Keep you posted.
ADD BOARD AND BATTEN TO THE WALLS
This room doesn’t get a lot of light, but I wanted to do the walls in a darker color, so if we added some molding in a bright white it would help break up all the dark paint.

ADD BINS AND BASKETS TO THE BUILT-INS
These shelves need some personality. This room doubles as the playroom, so I have to be careful about what I prop them with! No breakable vase collections here!
Lowe's Creative Ideas Network
This post was brought to you by the Lowe’s Creative Ideas Network, which I’m so happy to be a part of along with a crew of other really creative bloggers, you can check out all of our fun projects on the Lowe’s Creative Ideas Blog. As a part of the LCI Network, I’ve received compensation in the form of Lowe’s credit to help with my projects above.

Reader Interactions

15 thoughts on this post

  1. Keep the stars! At least for a while. That's a classic look but very fresh on the dark grey background.

    • Aren't those chairs fun? We have the adult sized ones in the adjacent dining room too!

  4. I have my daughter's bed fully upholstered in a cream, brushed sunbrella and it's brilliant. I then went high end with her bolsters and pillows, but it's very cozy and durable. A friend did her entire sectional in sunbrella as well and it's also comfy. They have so many options these days.

  5. This looks beautiful! I love the crispness of the white board and batten with the charcoal walls- good choice!

    • Thanks Trisha, I thought the contrast of the gray and white really popped, glad you agree!

  6. Lovely, cozy room! I upholstered a couple of family room chairs in a great fabric by Cryton. It looks like mohair but indoor/outdoor, so repels liquids and stains. It can be spendy, but I purchased on a 50% off sale at Joann's.
    -Jane

  7. I love that you include your kids things in the family room like toys etc! I do it too…tucked away into a Pottery Barn storage system. It is the "family" room after all 🙂

  8. I love your living room! Just curious, where are those wooden blocks in the wooden box from? My son would love that for xmas! Thanks 🙂