Family Room Tour....And Some Bittersweet News

Today, I'm finally sharing a tour of my family room in our new house.  I've been meaning to take pictures for weeks, but then something else would come up and I wouldn't get around to it.  However, this week I got very serious about the tour when I found out we were moving.  Yes, you read that right...we are moving again.  My very smart, hardworking and amazing Hubby got a new job with his company in Chicago.  I'm so proud of him and how hard he has worked to achieve all he has.  It's great he's getting this amazing opportunity, but it's bittersweet.  We love our house, our neighborhood and the friendships we've formed while living in CT.  In the almost 6 months we've lived in our house, it has become our home.  I've worked many long hours turning this house into OUR home and not a house we bought from someone.  Yes, I know I can do this all again, but I have to admit it's a lot harder this time!  

SO while I can, I'm taking pictures to document the house I truly love.  Thank you to Charlotte of Ciburbanity for encouraging me to do this.  At first when I found out we were going to have to sell the house I didn't want to take anymore pictures, but Charlotte pointed out that it's a great way to document what we've done here and memories for Hunter when he gets older.

The family room is our favorite room as a family.  It's warm, cozy and a place we spend a lot of time cuddling, staring at the fire, talking and watching movies as a family.  

Here's a picture from the real estate listing.  The room was this color when we moved in and the curtains and roman shades were also here.  Everything else of course was the sellers.

This is a BIG room.  It's deceiving from this picture because you can't see the entire room.  The first thing I had to do was change the color of the walls.   The color was too greeny yellow for me.  I wanted something that was warm, cozy and had a masculine feel.  I am the only girl in a family of men.  Even the cat and dog are male!  The color I chose was the same color I chose for the kitchen ceiling...Cinder by Benjamin Moore.  It's interesting how the kitchen looks different than the family room, even though they're the same color.  The lighting is a lot different in both rooms.

Now,  no matter what I do  I have a hard time photographing this room.  Reds are hard to photograph I'm figuring out and also, this room doesn't always get a lot of light.  On the day I took these pictures the light was perfect, but the pictures still didn't turn out the way I had hoped.

When You walk into the room this is one of the first things you see....our massive brand new section that we LOVE and our new dark slate grey and tiny red polka dot chair that we also just purchased.  We had our other sofa for 15 years, so it had lived a long and happy life.  It was still in great shape, but I was ready for a change.

Here's the room looking toward the entrance from the foyer and the front entry.  This sectional is so comfy.  It's grey with silver nail head detailing.  It's a warm, grey fabric that reminds me of a nice men's suit.

This is the other side, near the other entrance to the kitchen and eating area.  You can see one of my little plaid wool chairs my friend Emily scoped out for me at an estate sale!  I love them!

Here's a little bit better picture of my cute red plaid chair.  That M I got at Hobby Lobby on clearance and I just set it there because I have no idea where I want to hang it yet.  One thing I do like to do in a room is use odd things for side tables.  I especially like to use vintage children's school chairs and small wooden stools. 

This is back on the other side of the room by the windows and my other plaid wool chair.  Also, one of my favorite possessions, my old linen pull down map of Europe and my light up globe.  Yes, remember I have a globe obsession?  You can't really see it, but the globe is on a bent wood children's school chair.

This is one of the first things you see when you walk into the room from the front entrance....my beloved library card cabinet.  

This is on the opposite wall from the windows as you can see from the glare off the TV.  

I had really been wanting a white deer or moose head for my wall, but the prices I found were too much.  This summer while I was in Atlanta I stopped in at the Pottery Barn Kid's Outlet store and found this cute moose head for $4.99.  It was brown cardboard and when I got home I put it together, and spray painted it white.  Then one day while thrifting, I found a wood plaque and bought it to hang my moose head on.  For about $5.50 I had a much less expensive version.

With this room, I was really going for that masculine, men's club kind of vibe, without being too manly that I wouldn't feel welcome.  It ended up being a modern take on a masculine men's club...at least that's what I'm calling it :-)

The last thing I really want to point out is this amazing ottoman the hubby and I built from scratch!!  This is our first project we've ever done together using power tools, without arguing.  I had a lot of fun working with him, but it was a stretch for him to adapt to my 'go with the flow' way of building.  He likes to use plans, I like to just wing-it!  It all worked out in the end and we had a great bonding time.

The fabric I purchased at Joann's and is by HGTV Home..  The nail heads came in strips with every few spaces there was a place to hammer a nail head in.  This made it so much easier, but I won't lie....it was still hard to get it perfectly straight!  I bought them on Amazon.  The ottoman is basically 2 sheets of 1 inch plywood cut to size, then the sides are solid pine panels we cut to size.  What we really ended up making was a stage.  Yes, the hubby might have suggested keeping it a stage and just adding a pole....UGH typical man!  Instead, I added 6 inch wood legs underneath the 'stage' by attaching metal leg brackets that the wood legs screw into.  I topped the ottoman with 3 inch foam, batting and fabric.  I attached the fabric and batting to the underneath using my brand new air gun brad nailer/stapler.  WOW, what a difference that makes!!!  So much easier than my little electric staple gun.

This this is big.  It ended up being 37" X 37" square and about 15" high.  It's a perfect height for putting your feet up at the end of the day.   I'm still looking for the right tray to put on top.  I want a really big round wood tray, something unique so it might be awhile before I find the right one.

I stained the legs with General Finishes Gel Stain in Java.  If you haven't tried this stuff yet...you have to.  It's the best!  I think it's ruined me for any other kind of stain.

Well, that concludes my extremely picture heavy family room tour!  I hope you enjoyed it.  I'm sitting on the sectional right now by the fire writing this and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.  Well, I might like to be on the beach since we have over a foot of snow outside right now, but that's not an option right this minute!

Thank you as always for reading.  I will be posting as much as possible.  With everything going on I might not have as much time to devote to blogging, but I'm not going anywhere....well other than to Chicago eventually!  If you know of anyone who wants to buy an amazing home in CT, let me know!

Have a great weekend!

Thank you,