Renovations and Transformations Volume 2: The Family Room

When we first moved into our house, everything was drab and dated. Every room needed something, and we have made it our goal to transform this house into our home. The first room that we tackled was the kitchen, and I will get to that story. Believe me, it's a good one. This is the downstairs living space, and what we have transformed into my husband's Spartan Room, and what I hope will one day be our family room. When we started, the room had dark blue carpet, the hallway had laminate tile, the stairs going upstairs were the wonderful tri-colored carpet from the living room. There was paneling below a chair rail, one wall was covered entirely in several layers of wallpaper, another wall was covered entirely in paneling, the light fixture looked like it was meant to be outside, and the beautiful wooden beams in the ceiling were painted to match the walls. It was hard to know where to start. Pulling up the carpet in all of the other rooms in the house gave us a place to go. When we re-carpeted the master bedroom (another story for another day), we also did the downstairs family room. Before carpeting, we wanted to get rid of the wallpaper and the paneling, and get paint up on the walls to save us the trouble of protecting the carpet later. This is the one room in the house where my husband got to pick the paint color because I promised that he could have his Spartan Room just like his dad's. We painted one whole wall white, the area below the chair rail a dark green and above white, and then the wall of paneling was painted dark green as well. We chose a tan carpet with some variation in it for the general wear and tear.

 We also decided, with his mom's help, to paint the beams on the ceiling dark green and keep the stripe down the middle white. They were painted already, so we figured, why not just paint over that.

The first picture shows just after the carpet guys finished installing, and we had already done the painting. The line looks a little uneven because in the next photo we added the chair rail to make the straight line.

The only thing that has not been changed out in the entire room so far is the window trim. We have not yet figured out how to cut the quarter round so that it sits the right way in the sill to seal it up.

The TV went up in the corner on the green wall, and now above the TV is four posters from when the Michigan State football team went to the Rose Bowl in 2014. Of course my husband has LED lights hooked up to the back of the TV that glow different colors and whenever the Spartans play, they glow green.


The DVD cases have since moved to be up against a flat wall because we want children and didn't want them to be able to pull them over onto themselves. Those are black/brown Billy DVD cases from Ikea. The TV stand is a Hemnes TV Stand from Ikea and has the extension on one side to have two glass doors and a drawer in the middle.




















 We had to take the original railings down to paint and redo them, and my husband thought they weren't fancy enough for our house, so we found ourselves back at the hardware store looking at stair railings. Of course, I picked out the super fancy one that has a delicate design on it. My husband did all the cutting of the railings himself, and even figured out a way to make cuts so it would turn into the wall, and have that awesome finished look.

 

 For a while, when we first bought our house, we didn't have a whole lot of furniture, and our family room downstairs had a TV stand, two DVD cases, and bag chairs for us to sit in and watch TV. I will always remember our first Super Bowl in our house sitting in a bag chair next to my husband. I won money on that game, too! Last summer, we came across one of the greatest finds for our house: a 4 piece, La-Z-Boy Sectional sofa. We were at a clearance sale at a furniture store, and my husband happened to walk by this sofa, and it had a $500 price card sitting on one of the arms. It seemed too good to be true, but it wasn't. We had it delivered a week later, and our family room looked just a little bit more finished. And let me tell you how much this couch is my dream sofa. I have always wanted a sectional with a chaise lounge on one end and a recliner on the other, and that's exactly what I got. It was unbelievable! The pillows are decorative pieces that I added for my husband as part of his Christmas present. I found the pillow cases online through an ad I saw on Facebook, and the pillows themselves are forms purchased from Joann Fabrics. I always use coupons at Joann so I didn't pay full price.

The next thing my husband wanted was curtains for his Spartan Room that were Spartan related. My sister-in-law made Roman shades for the bathroom at their house, and it seemed pretty simple. The tutorial that I followed from Pinterest is linked here! My husband chose Spartan heads with football helmets backed with opaque black fabric to make them more light tight. I sewed the two fabrics together similar to a pillowcase, and then followed the directions for the Roman shades.

Then it was time to add the rest of the decor. Being a Spartan fan for life like my husband means that you have lots of stuff. I have only recently begun adding to his collection of things. The large mural is a fathead of the 2014 Rose Bowl game which my husband took his dad to, so he was there. We added the small panorama of Spartan Stadium when we lived in our apartment, and I got him the two other signs. One is family rules that includes being a Spartan fan and the other came from Campus Den, a store filled with college items that says Love You to East Lansing and Back because that may as well be his moon!








We have since added a new coffee table and end table. I bought the end table for my husband as a Christmas gift, and his parents got him the matching coffee table. They really add a touch to the room that the old coffee table was unable to do. They match the rest of the black furniture, and they have Spartan heads on them.

 This renovation was a little bit cosmetic and mostly decorative, but my husband is happy and that's what matters.

Until next time...