Family Room Redo

So right after Christmas, I decided that the family room needed a redo.



It wasn't as light and bright as it could be. I've been seeing so many beautiful rooms with light colored walls that seem so airy and calming... especially in the now defunct Domino magazine... R.I.P. So as you can see from the pictures, we had a LOT of stuff on the big bookcases.



When the bookcases were emptied most of the stuff was toys and about 60 pounds of magazines. We moved the bookcases into other rooms that desperately needed the shelving. I repainted everything! Ceiling, trim, walls... everything is really, really clean with brand new paint.



We bought a new shelving unit from IKEA that would hold our television... which was 1/4" too wide to fit on the old bookcases. No, you couldn't just wedge it in there... we tried and it looked, well, wedged.



After we completely assembled the bookcase, we realized that it didn't have feet and had to sit over a heat vent... the only heat vent in the room. And we discovered this at 10pm at night. Everything was closed so there was no way to finish this project that night. Which was extremely disappointing as I had painted and used fans to get all the paint on the shelving unit wall done and dried so we could install our new furniture and get the TV back up and running. The next day the spouse bought wood and ebony stain and started making block feet that would raise the shelf about 1-3/4" off the floor. You cannot make stain dry any faster than it is designed too. We checked with two experts (my dad and his dad) and both said "Don't rush it"... speaking from experience, of course. So the 6'x6' case was flat on the floor for 2 days while the feet dried.



The result is exactly what I had envisioned... and I LOVE it.



We even replaced the the spouse's "unauthorized purchase" couch with a brand new couch from Dania. This is my first brand new couch that I have ever purchased in my life! The old couch is on Craigslist if anyone is interested.