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Living Solutions blog

Ideas & Inspiration

Re-thinking your home

April 3, 2012 By Living Solutions Interior Design

Happy Monday!  Hope you had a great weekend! It really felt like a true weekend around here. A lot of hanging out, some home improvement and relaxing!

I mentioned last week that we were in the bay area week or so ago, and we usually drive up-with 2 grown ups, 2 kids and a giant dog. We leave super early, get our first round of Starbucks, stop at the same exit after the Grapevine and usually end up in the bay area around 2pm. We have come to really enjoy these drives. Jason and I have a lot of good conversations, and in addition to some deep, introspective talks, we also discussed our home on this drive! 

Lately I’ve been really wanting our family to spend more quality time together, listening to music, playing, reading, talking, etc. and not just watching Max and Ruby {if you don’t know what this awesome show is, clearly you don’t have small children and don’t watch this on loop :) }. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to achieve this, besides the obvious of just implementing it. And I had mentioned about a week before, while we were playing in our bright, empty living room {or the blue room as it’s affectionately known in our house because of the navy carpet}, 
“Wouldn’t it be great if we could use this as our family room?”


I think I’ve mentioned it before, but I love a lot of light in a house and a lighter feeling in the way of furnishings. Our current family room is a bit too dark for my taste, and we’ve got plans for lightening it up in the future. 
 This is what our current family room looked like the day we got the house-we no longer have that ceiling fan.
Our “blue room” has all white trim, a fireplace, a large sliding glass door and is open to the dining room that also has a large slider. There is a lot of light, and although it’s not very deep, it’s a good size room. 

 Our formal dining room is to the left.

 Unfortunately, right now, this room is pretty much just a storage space for a few pieces that haven’t found a home quite yet and our boys’ race track.

So, Jason {I must give credit where credit is due!} said on our drive…
“Why don’t we make that our family room and…”  I knew right where he was going and got so excited! “Make our current family room more of a true “den”.”

This way, we won’t really have a “formal” living room, but a family room with the tv, a large sectional for more seating, and future built ins to showcase some of our collectables.  And our new “library” or “den” would be a place to read, relax, play games, do puzzles and listen to music and eventually do homework. If we kept the blue room as a living room, we’d only use it a few times a year when we hosted holidays or had parties. With this plan, we’ll be using our whole house, and hopefully using it more specifically to how we want use it, not just how it was originally laid out to be used. 
This won’t be happening overnight, really not until late summer, early fall, so you’ll have to bare with me while I slowly share the progress on this pretty big project.  I want to start planning it now, so I know how much we have to budget for each space and see if my ideas change a bit {which I’m sure will happen once or twice!}.  I also thought this would be a great chance to show you the step by step process of one of our design projects-from the floor plans to the design concept to the selecting of pieces to the final look!

So I challenge you to rethink a part of your home. Maybe turning a coat closet into “command center,” {more on that hopefully later this week-it’s been primed, ceiling has been painted and the first coat of the lighter color is up}, a bedroom into an office or den, or even more fun, a closet/dressing room! You could even change some smaller area, like a storage area under the stairs into a little play room for kids or an extra bedroom closet as a little built in office. 

Have any of you used a space in your home differently than it’s originally intended use? We’d love to hear about it!

You May also Like:

Organizing Your Home, One Step at a Time-the “In Box” Laundry Hamper Cabinet The “Joys” of Home Ownership Projects, Projects, Projects!

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Hi! I'm Gina and welcome to the Living Solutions Blog! I'm a wife, a mom of 4 little kiddos and the owner of Living Solutions Interior Design. My family and I recently moved from San Diego, CA to Nebraska and this blog is where I share inspiration, design tips and ideas, projects and every day life! Thanks for stopping by!

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