Please help me decorate our family room!
pkshel
4 years ago
last modified: 4 years ago
Hello,
I am decorating the family room of our new house. It is a long rectangular space which consists of kitchen on one end and family room on the other with breakfast area in between. The kitchen has white cabinets and gray/white counter-tops. Walls are all off-white and the builtin in family room is greige. The leather recliners are dark gray. I am now looking for something to go over the mantel (is the one I placed there too small? too bright?), an area rug and a coffee table. I started by decorating the built-in using a blue/green/gold palette. We are planning to shift all the stuff from under the TV to the 2 bottom shelves of the built-in so they are empty right now. Any comments/suggestions on the placement of objects in the built-in would be greatly appreciated. Also please help me pick the other items... it will keep me from being too matchy-matchy or gaudy. Thank you!
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Comments (21)You asked: I hate it. The bottom one looks like someone took a traditional, wicker sofa and wrapped it in leather. Those very formal, old fashioned arms, and bun feet, don't go with the eclectic, casual style of the upholstery. The shape of the red sofas is much more appropriate, but it would be better in all leather. Leather is great with kids so long as they don't have sharp things in their pockets and can be trusted not to poke pencils into it. It cleans up with water and saddle soap. But it does stick to bare skin, and can get hot. It's nature's vinyl. Which is why they combine it with fabric. Bad move. Either be fabric or be leather. The weight and texture are too different and they rarely come out looking great, especially after some living happens. The red bench is cool! Less imposing than a sofa table (console), but with a lot of the same function. And it's folky and funky. My Aunt had the two sofas flanking the fireplace in her living room. It's a great conversation grouping, but not so much for TV watching. For that, especially for the kids who probably look at the screen more, you want a straight on view. You can do a big square, though. An L of couch and settee or second couch or loveseat, and a couple of small easy chairs that are easy to get around on the opposite side. You have your red chairs. I'm not sure if they're too big to allow people to walk by easily if you close up the square, but even so, you can always pull them over for company, and keep them by the piano for family time with running kids. Re Larry, have your other family members sit tested him? I totally agree about the shape. It's very tired. But that LOVE thing is important. Your family room couch should feel Ahhh to sit on. I'm sure it'll still be there though. Maybe you can find a similarly comfy couch in a more classic shape that will give you more breadth of possibilities. Comfort comes first, but it can be done with a little more style than poor Larry. ;-)...See MorePlease help with decorating family room (post corrected)
Comments (8)My techy brother is visiting me. He says that you could mount a screen on the wall opposite the patio doors (get a motorized one with a remote) and then mount a projector over the patio doors. The screen is only visible when you are watching something, if you paint or otherwise cover up the casing, and you can build a box to camoflage the projector. It may sound wacky, but he has a projector and screen mounted to the ceiling in his family room and you really don't notice them when they're not in use. If you don't want to go that route, could you get one of those TV lift cabinets where the TV is hidden inside and then rises up when you need it? That could go under the small window. Even if the cabinet blocked the bottom few inches of the window, it might look nicer than having the TV block the window. Other than that, it does look as if the corner where the TV is now or the wall where the mirror is are your best bets. If you floated some furniture in a L-shaped configuration, either two sofas or a sectional, you could take advantage of the views and the TV screen....See MorePlease help me update our family room
Comments (42)That is a LOT of woodwork to paint or stain. I'd forget about that for now. Once you get started on that, you're going to start questioning everything, including the front door. The First thing I'd do is get that huge honkin' TV off the floor. Get an articulating arm TV mount, and put it either on the center of the wood mantel, so that you can have the TV in front of the fireplace for viewing if you don't have a fire, and raise it above the fireplace when you do have a fire - doesn't matter if it covers some of the bookcases . Put the cable box and DVD, etc., on those shelves. for this, you want a mount that will allow you to raise and lower the TV. OR, put the articulating arm on one of the panels between the two windows closest to the FP. When you want to watch TV, pull it away from the windows and at an angle. When you don't, you can just push it back against the windows. This way, also, you don't have any glare from the windows hampering TV viewing. Put the sofa so that it is facing the fireplace, centered in the room, with the left arm of the sofa oppose the small wall between the front hall and the playroom. I WOULD paint the bookshelves surrounding the FP, including inside. Maybe a nice Colonial green? Personally, I'd put doors on those bookshelves; they look cluttered to me, and that would drive me nuts. If you do put the TV there, though, keep in mind that you want access to the two bays nearest the FP which part of the TV would be covering. Also personally, for living areas, I prefer natural and earth tones. I'd paint the walls something like Revere Pewter (BM), and again, paint just the bookcases and mantel a rich green, maybe something like BM Palmer Green...See MoreHelp me decor my family room
Comments (4)Anglophilia wrote: "When did "decor" become a verb?" bren5kids, you can flag her comment. Anglo, not everyone posting here is an English as their first language speaker. Perhaps that is the case. No reason to be so unkind....See Morepkshel
4 years ago
PROFlo Mangan
4 years agonjmomma
4 years agopkshel
4 years ago- PRO
Flo Mangan
4 years agoI also have a couple ideas for some coffee tables. Just have to make sure you know how much distance you need for any recliners in your furniture.
erinsean
4 years ago
PRO
mary44
4 years agopkshel
4 years agopkshel
4 years ago- PRO
Flo Mangan
4 years ago erinsean
4 years ago
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