Note: The photos of our new family room are coming in the next post, but before we share them, I wanted to take a look back.
You know that one room in your house that you don't really use and find yourself making excuses for when company comes to visit? Maybe you don't have one, but we certainly did! Our family room was a salmon coloured ugly duckling with the cheapest of laminate floors and a cheap shower living in the corner of the room. I've talked about it before here, but here are some photos below to jog your memory.
Bad, right? I think we figured there was no point in doing anything (even painting) until we sort of figured the room out. It had no purpose... Which is crazy because when we bought the house we both thought it would be so awesome to have that extra room!
So how did two people who aim to make the very best use of their small space end up neglecting the largest room (not counting the basement) in the house for two and a half years? I think we started by dumping our extra furniture there. It was nice to have a place to put things while we were renovating other rooms. We also preferred that shower to the cramped one in the basement and so we used the shower for the first year until the upstairs washroom was complete.
After we stopped using the shower, I'm not sure what happened. It was nice having a room where the dogs could chill out and be away from the rest of the renovations. It was also nice that we had a room with shitty flooring so if the dogs came inside with muddy feet, we could just throw down some winter mats and call it a day. At some point though, it became pathetic that the largest room in our small house was little more than a dog drying room.
The evolution of the room began when Corey was working on the kitchen. It made good sense to continue the flooring and wall colour through the kitchen AND family room so it forced us to at least do the minimum and work on the floor and prime the walls.
Oh yeah! At one point, I did have a treadmill in the room, which actually got some good use before I got pregnant and started throwing up all the time.
Our "Ah Ha Moment" came when I (in a fit of manic redecorating) moved the couch from the wall we'd always kept it on (the left side of the above photo) to sit against the wall with the window and door. It was a total game changer. All of a sudden, it felt like we had so much more space in the room and I started to brainstorm ideas.
Our family room is now complete (as much as any room in our evolving house is ever complete) and I'll share some photos in the next post!
