Before and After: Finishing a Great Room

This past weekend, my client flew me down to her home in Florida to help her pull her living room and dining area together.  Carol was one of my first Window Wednesday readers who asked for my help solving her window issue.  Now we were on to other things...

Here was the living room space when I arrived...

And here was the dining area, which is right behind that sofa...

My client was off to a great start with this space(she redid those chair seats on her own), but she felt like things were "off", that she couldn't get it right.  She felt she had a mistake in the mix, and she wanted me to tell her what went wrong.  And then fix it.  In two days.  Let me just say, we shopped till we dropped.

Let's look at another view of the before...

When Carol emailed me pictures, the first thing I saw was that in the palette of blue-green, coral and taupe, no one color was dominating. The colors also had the same value (strength of color).  Having equal presence and value, the room lacked a "wow" factor, and didn't feel grounded.   I wanted to cure that by deciding which colors were staying, and which would dominate where.  To do that, I suggested we start by anchoring the living room area with a strong rug.


Here's a close up of the rug we found...

In the living room, the two French chairs in taupe and blue definitely had to go.  Why?  To help give the room balance.  Taupe is the color of the back of the bookcases, and that was enough.  Eclectic works when a room has achieved balance, and in this case, I felt it needed better color balance.  Sooo...

Two new chairs with this wood frame...

In this deeper blue-green fabric (image a bit off), will replace the taupe chairs.

A new sofa in a light beige found in the rug and also this fabric, will replace the current white one, toning the look down a bit, and softening the overall look of the room.

Here's a look at the room with the rug getting a trial run (can you picture the pale beige sofa?)...

Since the t.v. is across from the sofa and Carol's husband likes to put his feet up, the coffee table is being replaced with two square ottomans in a multi-color "tweed" with blue-green welt.  These will add a nice pop, and Carol will be able to use one with her new chairs.

Since this is getting pretty long, I'll save the dining area for the next post.

If you've been reading me for a while, you know I'm a pretty irregular blogger, and that's been the case of late.  Busy with work, family and projects.  My blog usually falls down the list.  Thanks for hanging around and reading -- I appreciate it.

Carol