Family Room Face Lift

Between swimming, grilling out, and hanging out with family, Christian and I (and my mom too!) managed to squeeze in the time to give our family room a much need face lift.  Our house was built in 1960.  Too say that it has quirks is being polite.  We bought our house from the original owners.  The husband passed away in the 80s, and I think the household updates stopped there.  Fortunately for us, they neutralized everything before putting it up for sale.  The entire house is an awful paint color.  It really looks like primer.  They painted everything – walls, crown molding, floor boards, etc. This weekend we started the process of bring our house to modern times.

As soon as we bought the house I knew the exact feeling I wanted in our house.  I wanted it to be combination of cozy beach house meets Utah and all the elements of nature while being respectful of the fact that the house was built in 1960.  I’m not sure exactly what that looks like, but I know how I want it to feel. I want it to be combination of everything we love. I’m not comfortable living in a “designed” room. Decorating our house will be a slow, forever ongoing process.

On Saturday I posted about motivation. My motivation for the color scheme in our house comes from a mug that Christian brought back from Montana last August. It’s a clay mug from a local pottery shop. I love the contrast of the grey/brown/muddy colors against the terracotta.  As soon as he brought it home, I knew I’d be using it to compare color swatches for the entire house.  So far we have the more muddy, greenish, grayish color in our front room.  I’m pulling the softer grays into our living room.  The terracottas will be used in the kitchen.

To start the process, Christian picked up the paint from Home Depot for me on Friday afternoon.  It’s called “wheat bread” by Behr.  I wanted something neutral, crisp, clean, and in the gray family.  I love this color. Fare Warning: the before and after photos are not dramatic AT ALL! But the over all feeling in the room is dramatic.  It definitely adds the cozy cottage feel to the room that I love.

Like all good house projects, the after results inspire a whole new list of house projects.  Our family room face lift was no exception.  As soon as we had new paint on the walls, I noticed the oldness and inconsistency of the wall outlets.  Some of the outlets were the original 2-prong outlets. Some of the outlets were converted to 3-prong but were installed upside down and had been painted over several times.  Christian tackled the outlets for me first thing Monday morning.  I had no idea I would be so excited about wall outlets.  Having an outlet with 3-prongs that actually holds the plug-in place is an amazing thing!

The list of additional projects doesn’t stop with the wall outlets.  Now that the walls are clean and crisp, the trim and doors look dull and dingy.  I will be buying a gallon of glossy white paint to paint the trim, crown molding, and doors slowly over the next few weeks.  The bathroom and laundry room doors have never been painted. They even still have the sales sticker on the edge. HaHa!

I’m also on a mission to find fabric to create curtains for around the window and french doors.  I want a large graphic print that has lots of blue tones!

And of course, there is the big ugly eye sore in our room.  The built-in book shelf. Yes! That is a gun cabinet on the right. On the left is a closet for the previous owners hunting clothes. It won’t be a small project. The back wall is all wood paneling, so who knows what that will expose. It’s on the long-term list of projects for the house. We plan on rebuilding a new set of built-in shelves that better meet the needs of our family – more storage, less gun cabinet!

Until all of those items get crossed off the list, I’m loving the new wall color! Up next is our kitchen! Time to start searching for the perfect terracotta color.