Tackling the Family Room

The Family room was supposed to be easy. From the photos I took of the house, the room looked move-in ready. Unfortunately, that was not the case. It's actually been the room giving us the most headaches.

First of all - the room, which I thought was beige, was actually PINK. A light shade of pink that didn't show up in the photos, but is very, very apparent in the sunlight. Which means we needed to paint it before we moved in.

I wasn't prepared for this and hadn't picked any paint colours. I didn't have a 'theme' or any idea what the room concept would be. I figured I'd just throw all our old furniture in it and eventually come up with a look when I updated the curtains and couch. Crap.

We finally decided on Gobi Dessert and Mississippi Mud from Behr. Except, we didn't like Behr paint. So we took it to Tony (our new BFF) who matched the paint colours by sight with Benny Moore paint. Amazing. Tony's Mud is a little greener than I wanted, but it's close enough (I did have a bit of a panic when it first went up as it looked 'military green', but it dried a nice, muddy colour).

I also had a bit of an issue trying to decide which would be the 'focal wall'. Usually it's the wall with the TV or the fireplace. But fireplace is actually on a 'fifth' wall. It would look weird to only paint that one wall. Finally, we decided to paint the adjacent wall with the window. Of course, we decided this AFTER I had spent the afternoon cutting both walls.

Usually, it doesn't take me much time to cut a wall, but I was going crazy in the Family room because that 'light pink' refused to go away!! It kept showing through the paint strokes, which is weird because we did not have this problem with any other room when we used the Benny Moore paint. But this room required a second coat.

The second problem - it's smaller than I remembered. Where would we put the TV? The only option that allowed us to fit a couch, a loveseat and have floor space for rock band, was to put the TV over the fireplace. With our new trusty StudFinder (from Gary's Home Depot shopping spree), we think it's do-able. Thank goodness!

But once we move in, we'll need to focus on the Family room ASAP. We had to take down the gross blinds when we painted and I don't want them back up. Plus, our couch is now the exact colour of the wall. It's camaflouge! Since Gary probably won't let me hang up a shower curtain and drape a bedsheet over the couch (remember my Davisville days? So ghetto.), I better start checking furniture flyers!!