Focus on the Family Room

Do you ever find it difficult to focus on one project at a time? We have so much empty space and random decor from previous houses in our home right now that I'm just jumping from room to room trying to update things. But I'm finding that I just wind up with several partially-finished rooms and no completely finished rooms. I am going to try to change that. 

I'm not delusional enough to think I'm actually going to succeed in channeling all of my efforts to one room, but I'm sure going to try!  My plan is to focus on the family room and only do projects in other rooms if they are essentially free.

Here's my "to-do/wishlist" for my family room:

We finally decided on and ordered couches last weekend. This is what we went with:

Don't pay attention to the pillows, I plan to get rid of them.

The furniture layout will be just about the same as a model of our house with two couches in an "L" shape opposite two accent chairs, like this:

I want to do my paint color scheme similar to this too.

Here are some of the things I want for the family room:

 

1. Coffee and console table something like this.

2. Two accent chairs... here are my options: Option 1, Option 2, Option 3, Option 4, Option 5 and Option 6.  I LOVE the target one, but I'm afraid the pattern won't work with some of the other patterns I already have in the room and/or won't be flexible in case I want to change something up in the future.  And as far as the gray options, I'm afraid it will wind up being too similar to the couches, but not exact, so it will look like a failed attempt at matching.  So I guess I'm leaning toward either the navy, peacock, black or really light gray one, but I can't decide!!  Any input is very much appreciated! 

3. Fake fireplace like this one on the wall opposite the couch (behind the two chairs):

 

http://www.buildingsimpleblog.com/2012/11/dining-room-makeover.html

I'm also working on a photo gallery which will go on that wall until we get around to building the "fireplace".  More on that to come!

 

Please share any thoughts... I'm totally open to suggestions!

More Interior Design Resources

We went to visit the house around 9:30 last night and the workers were still there!!!  We drove around for about 20 minutes hoping they were just finishing up, but they didn't show any signs of leaving.  It seems like we are already ahead of schedule so I'm surprised that they would be working so late.  Greg didn't want to go in while they were there so we just turned around and went home :(.  I'm going to go over again today after work.  Hopefully I can get some pictures of whatever they were doing in there.  

 

Since I have no house pictures to share with you today, I thought I'd share one of my new favorite interactive design websites: http://olioboard.com/  Once you register, you can create your own "ideaboards" for rooms.  They have a million different furniture and decor pieces to choose from, but my favorite part of this site is that you can upload your own pictures.  So if you want to see how something in the store will look with stuff you already have, you can take pictures of everything (or get pictures from the store website), upload them to your olioboard, and play around to see how they go together and what else you could use to pull everything together.

 

You can start from scratch with your own ideas or you can "love" someone else's board then use their items to make it your own.  You can download your boards to a .jpg file so you can print them out and take them shopping with you!  There's also a "shop it" feature so you can find out where to buy the things you add to your boards.  They even tell you when your selected items are on sale!

 

There are some other features that I haven't tried out yet and the best part is that it's free!  If you want something more advanced, you can pay to unlock additional features, but I'm not at that point yet.  I'm just having lots of fun planning my rooms as I wait for my house to be finished!

 

Here are some boards that I have made:

Guest bedroom idea.
I want to change this to include some furniture that I just inherited from my grandmother.  I plan to make a nightstand similar to the one shown from my late mother's old suitcase.

Possible Formal Living Room Idea

Possible Family Room Idea 
(if I stick with the red couch I already have)

Master Bedroom Idea
(I'm going to work on this one to try to make it a little less "girly", but we are using my white bedroom set so I think it may be a little on the feminine side regardless)

The "HE" and "SHE" pictures above the bed are things that Greg and I made and displayed at our wedding. They list all of the things we love about each other.  I think it would be so cute to hang these above our bed.  It will tell us which side of the bed is ours and also remind us why we fell in love :).

 

Here are some examples of boards I "loved" that other people have made:

I love these colors for a gender-neutral nursery (some day!!)

If I decide not to use my red couch in the family room I'd like to get a dark gray sectional and do this type of color scheme.

Happy designing!  If you decide to sign up for olioboard please follow me and I'll follow you back!  My username is colettefb.