Family Room Reveal: Before and After

I was perfectly happy with my family room.

I loved the red check curtains,
the cottag-y slipcovers, and my dad's pine trunk.

I loved it even more when I got a new grey couch!
And it looked great with everything that was already in the room.
No need to change anything!

But one day, just for fun, I hung up some grey fabric
to see what it would look like instead of the red checks.

Then I just happened to find this great rug when
I was shopping on vacation.
I wasn't looking for it, it was just there!

Well, one thing always leads to something else,
so I made new slipcovers in a navy ticking
and new pillows to keep a pop of red.
(Plus, I wanted to keep the little red dresser in the corner)


I also brought in an old over-stuffed chair and painted it grey,


traded the heavy, dark trunk for an airy, white table,


and made new pillows for the couch,
including some red-checked ones!

Christmas House Tour: Family Room

My family room at the back of the house is a lot of red and yellow,
so this is where all my old red and green Christmas things live during the holidays!

 
Quilts and pillows.

The red checked curtains look like they were put up just for the season!


Nutcrackers and Christmas books!


Snowmen and snow globes!

This year I had a 4 and 6 year old helping with the decorating,

thus, some interesting placement of things!

Santas on shelves!

Santa with his horse!

Even Santa on a picnic basket!

Merry Christmas Links:

Fall Tour Complete, I Promise!

This will be the last post on Fall Decorating
as we move on from the living room, into the dining and family rooms!

 This is where I start to add a little color with pumpkins and gourds,

but I still keep a lot of white.

 

 More of my music sheet leaf garland works well with all my white dishes.

 

 I started with a banner as well, but decided it was too busy,

so it was moved into the family room.

 

 I love to use chalkboards, so I added one to the top

of the Welsh Dresser,

 

 and I always keep this one on the door.

 

 This year's basket of gourds, corn and pumpkins.

 The family room is already full of fall colors,

so not much needed in here!

 I like the banner much better over the window.

 Lots of pillows!

And some more random shots:

Happy Fall!

Joining a new party this week:

Before and After: Living/Family Room Swap

A few weeks ago I shared my idea to swap the furniture and everything else in my family and living rooms. Last week I showed you the newly painted family room. This week, I have before and after pictures of the family room to share. A lot of pictures!

So here we go:


Before: long wall of bookcases and armoir. It always bothered me somewhat because it seemed so cluttered, even though the shelves were neatly organized. I liked the contrast of the white and blue, but it added to the cluttered feel, along with too many small items.

After: still bookcases and armoir (in need of paint!), but a new color scheme and smaller set of shelves from the living room. These shelves seem less cluttered to me, maybe because the contrast is less, and the items are larger and fewer.

Before: left side bookcase, featuring quilts and fleur-de-lis.

After: acorn finials and some British artifacts moved in from the living room.

Before: right side, birdhouses and more fleur-de-lis. Individually, these shelves don't seem too bad, but seen as a whole, they just didn't work.

After: more folk art objects from the living room.

Before: across the room, this corner featured a Shakespeare poster and birdcage on a small blue dresser.

After: my new red cabinet and antique samplers. I think this is my favorite corner of the room because I love this new cabinet.

Here's another picture just because I love it!

Before

After

Before

After  (another furniture piece to be painted)

Before: I love this slipcovered wing chair and chippy old milking stool,
but I think they look even better in the living room.

 After: replaced with a club chair and quilt ladder.


Before

After: the grandfather clock is still there.


Before: I had slipcovered the leather couch to fit in with the white and blue color scheme.

After: the couch is back to its original leather and it functions much better.

I am pretty happy with the results. Still have a few things to do, a couple pieces of furniture to paint, thinking of putting curtains on the French doors...

 The beadboord ceiling still looks great with the new look!

Next up will be a Before/After of the living room!