I’m so excited to share our completed living room renovation/makeover! I know I had a previous post on the fireplace renovation, so this will go into a little more detail on what all I did to the living room. When we bought this house, we knew going into it there would be some renovations and at the top of the list was the fireplace + living room area. It was such an awkward setup with the fireplace not being the focal point, it was unfinished, husband did not like the sparkly tile, the hearth was interesting and the tv mount left by the previous owners was on the wall to the left of fireplace. I went through 3 different setups for the kids to figure out how we can incorporate and hide their things but still make it inviting and cozy to adults. Through all the designs I made, tile I looked at, the back and forth on painting options I finally figured it out. We needed to do something with the area by the large picture window, so cozy boucle chairs and cabinets to hide the kid’s stuff was the perfect answer! The fireplace reno was a process only because, we did the demo (and by we, I mean our contractor) the same time as our bathroom remodel and that got delayed a few days which ultimately delayed tiling our fireplace because our contractor was so busy with other jobs. It did give us a lot of time to decide what we wanted to do with the fireplace and how I wanted to design the room. We hired a local fireplace company that I worked with as well, to design and custom build a new face for the firebox, since the old one was original to the house and was looking a little rough + add back in a gas line since it was previously taken out so we could do gas spheres instead of logs to modernize it. I had to take into consideration that the living area is a small but longer space, that our massive 65″ tv was going to be mounted above the fireplace and that the setup flowed into our “breakfast area” and kitchen. Our kitchen is 100% on our list to also be demoed and remodeled but that is quite a few years down the road unfortunately, so planning on how that would eventually look to compliment the rest of the area also came into play. I literally sketched out and did mood boards for essentially 4 quadrants in one space to figure out how I was going to make this area flow. When it came down to the design of the tile our contractor thought since the fireplace originally had tile going from floor to ceiling we were going to do the same thing with the new design, but with the help of Connor he steered me towards this large black tile with this very faint grayish-white marbling detail in it since we already have so many black and white accents through the front of the house and upstairs we carried it through the back of the house. With the price of tile + labor now a days, No.1 – we just weren’t sure if wanted to spend the extra money going from floor to ceiling with the tile since there would only be 5″ of tile shown on each side of the tv, No.2 – having that much black tile would make the space feel too cold and No.3 – possibly making the space feel even smaller with that tile. So, we chose to do half the wall area and the hearth with the black tile and our contractor used this schlage matte black border for to frame the firebox and the edge of the tile to give it a more finished look. It came out AMAZING and honestly a million times better than I could have even imagined. I was pretty bummed at first that we wouldn’t have enough room to do a mantle due to the amount of tile that has to be around your fireplace for a heat barrier and how big this dang tv is, but now I couldn’t imagine us having one there. It gives the house the perfect modern touch without being too over the top. I’ll link everything we used below and you can see the project from start to finish.
The before/listing pictures
The Demo + New Firepbox update
Next Phase – Paint
I originally planned on having an accent color on the fireplace wall again but opted to just paint all the walls, including the kitchen walls Benjamin Moore Chantilly Lace in the Pearl Finish, and I’m so happy I did. The lighting and natural light is interesting in this house so I wanted to brightening it up as much as possible without any yellow or blue hues pulling through the white. I can say this color was the best choice for that! We added in an outlet above the fireplace and changed out the old brown fan to an updated, quite Hunter fan.
The Final Product!
The after pictures are truly my favorite! The curtains, chairs and cabinets I choose warmed up the space so much. There was a lot of love and thought put into this project and we can’t wait for all the memories we make in this space with the kids and our family. It’s the perfect mix of cozy and functional for our little family. You don’t always have to demo things to make it your own, a little paint, art, curtains and/or accent furniture can make a huge impact on your space.
Click here for the links to all the home decor you see!
