Super boring post coming up. But if you're into seeing ugly "before" pictures then this may be the post for you. I've made it a priority to address the TV room this winter. Having a "TV room" on the main floor, separate from the rest of the house is amazing. Although it's such a huge bonus to have, it's terribly awkward room to decorate. Considering 50% of the room is windows, a window pass through and doorway makes it hard for furniture placement. I've decorated in stages - and not invested too much in pieces - which has meant the room has never really felt truly done. Above is how we got the room when we purchased it. It was used as a office perhaps? Or maybe a mud room? Not too sure. The rest of this post shows you what we've done each year to bring it to where we are today...
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| New wood floors being installed, not yet stained. "Window" to dining room. |
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| Ugly windows (not not energy efficient) are all different sizes. We couldn't afford to replace when we bought so we hid them with blinds. |
The TV room is part of an addition to our house that was done prior to us buying it. It was done pretty strangely, so a lot of what we had to do over the upcoming years was fixing weird design decisions. So here is what we did each year....
In 2008 when we bought the house we tore out the carpeting and installed real hardwood floors, which made this extension feel less like an after thought/addition, and more a part of the main house. Above in the "before" pictures you can see a cut out in the left hand wall. We filled in that cut out that looked through to the eat in kitchen. This is now where our refrigerator is - even back then we knew that by closing in that small window, it allowed for more use of the wall on the other side. We also painted the room.
In 2009 we replaced the back door with a full glass door. We saved a ton of money installing this door ourselves, but it wasn't without some stress. The top photo shows Aubrey late at night trying to level the door. By this point I had installed some blinds - which we had throughout the house to hide the ugly windows. Although they weren't gorgeous, they were economical and did the trick.
Between 2009 and 2011 nothing happened to this room other than playing around with an Ikea Rug, adding some hanging drapes between the blinds to soften things up. But because the ceiling is so close to the top of the windows, we couldn't install a bar. So these years we just "made do" with what we had. The room looked "ok" but didn't really work very well.
2012 Ken from Fieldstone Windows replaced every window in this room with new. It made such a difference. The windows are gorgeous and I loved them SO much I refused to put up the old blinds again. But we ran into a problem.
The windows look right in at our neighbours, who use their backdoor a lot. And although I love our windows, I found myself crawling along the floor if I was in my bathrobe to get something I forgot from this room. Although we LOVE our windows, the lack of privacy was, well, awkward. I really don't know how people live in uber modern glass houses with tons of windows. You really can't slouch around on days you don't feel like getting dressed.
So that brings us up to speed. Plans for this room are a new carpet (I ruined my old one by using Oxyclean on it - which bleached it) - switching out that side table for something heavier and less "sun room" like and the biggest expense will be adding some romans blinds. Budget is low, so we're trying to reuse some things from around the house. I visited Tonic Living so I'll post that next to show you some fabric samples I'm thinking of for the windows.
xo Linds
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