A Functional Family Room Flip

This week, we’re serving to a household “flip” their household room to enhance the house’s operate and really feel.

Roberto and Religion have lived of their residence for 16 years. It was in-built 1993 and got here with a {custom} bookshelf-desk combo that the couple hasn’t used a lot.

Additional, the outdated stain and glossy end depart the room feeling dated.

And with no different house for his or her TV moreover the wall on the opposite aspect of the room, the sofa is butted up towards the desk, making the room really feel small.

However we’ve bought some options!

The Initiatives

Deconstruct the Desk and Cupboards

First, we deconstruct the built-in desk and cupboards we’re eradicating. However we’re throwing nothing away. These cupboards may be repurposed for storage within the storage.

We save each little bit of trim from the desk to make use of alongside the ground fringe of the bookshelves. As a result of a lot of these items are made by the producer, we will’t simply change them.

After eradicating the cupboards, we discovered a pop of pink on the wall behind. Roberto and Religion had leftover paint from once they painted the household room years in the past, however the shade modified and doesn’t fairly match what’s on the partitions.

Drastic temperature adjustments may cause paint to alter shade, so it’s essential to retailer it in a temperature-controlled house to stop this.

To get the correct shade, we do a shade match. Merely take a boxcutter and carve out a sq. of paint from an not noticeable spot on the wall. We selected to take a pattern from subsequent to {the electrical} outlet that can be behind the TV dresser.

Change Flooring

Whereas eradicating the desk, we discover that it’s tightly glued to the ground, so we use a pry bar to get it free. In doing so, a few of the flooring beneath it between the bookshelves will get broken.

Luckily, Religion and Roberto simply changed their wooden laminate flooring two years in the past, so that they nonetheless had the producer’s data.

Everytime you change your flooring, all the time hold that data and buy some further flooring in case you might want to make repairs sooner or later. That flooring might be discontinued, and then you definately’ll be caught attempting to match the flooring if you might want to change a piece sooner or later. 

One factor you don’t need on the ground is a “clickity-clack” noise. If you stroll throughout a floating laminate ground, it would make every kind of noise with out an underlay pad.

As soon as we lay the pad, we stagger the flooring to match the remainder of the room.

Freshen Up the Mantel and Hearth

The low placement of the fireside mantel towards the tall ceiling makes the room really feel quick. To vary that, we add batten boards above the mantel. 

We’re constructing a fake board and double batten wall therapy above the mantel. To nail the look, we match the angle of the 1-by-2 boards to the angle of the ceiling utilizing a bevel gauge. Then we reduce the boards with a miter noticed.

Since there’s no assure there are studs behind every batten, we caulk every board with building adhesive after we nail them.

Subsequent, we concentrate on the fireside. Step one is cleansing the fireside. We use an answer of trisodium phosphate on the bricks, which can take away the soot stains. As soon as the fireside is clear, we paint the within of the firebox with high-heat black paint.

After that, we whitewash the fireside. We use 50 % water and 50 % flat-white paint. First, we moist the bricks with water so our whitewash paint can soak in evenly. The important thing to whitewashing is to be “constantly inconsistent” along with your brush strokes.

Repurpose the Bookshelves

Earlier than we will repurpose the bookshelves, we now have to clear them. Subsequent, we sand, prime, and paint the bookshelves to match the TV dresser.

Subsequent, we transfer the TV dresser from the opposite aspect of the room to the house between the bookshelves. It will create a pleasant leisure middle alongside the wall and permit the furnishings to circulate properly within the household room.

We additionally:

• Painted the chair rail to match the partitions
• Eliminated the chair rail subsequent to the fireside
• Relocated TV hookups
• Mounted the TV with an articulating wall mount

Submit-Manufacturing Ideas

Roberto and Religion have a gorgeous residence they usually handle it remarkably. However the household room was making a gift of the age of the home.

For starters, the room’s format was inefficient. The huge wall of dark-wood built-ins with a high-gloss end had the Nineties written throughout it.

For a big room, the house in some way felt small. And the fireside, which ought to have been a focus, additionally appeared small and out of proportion to the room.

However now, that very same fire grabs your consideration from the entrance door onward, because of the whitewashed bricks and the brand new board and batten wall therapy.

Eradicating the built-in desk has brightened up the room and allowed us to relocate the TV, which, in flip, allowed us to open up the room with a greater format.

Plus, altering the colour palette of the bookshelves has helped convey the room out of the ’90s and into the twenty first century. 

And we did all of it for lower than $600 in supplies.

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