If you’re following along on my 2012 Decorating To Do List, you know that finishing our family room is near the top of the list. It’s where we spend most of our time in the house and I think that’s why I’ve probably redecorated that room more than any other. I’m not done yet but here’s a little peek at what I’ve been doing in there:

Remember the Danish chairs I bought in the fall? They got nice new blue covers thanks to my mom. (You know how I’m loving blue these days.) Now I just need to do my part of the project which is to stain the wood a darker color. Notice how my part hasn’t been done yet and my mom’s part was finished ages ago!

And check this out, the same chair on 1stdibs for $1200:

This makes me feel better about what I spent on them! I also just spotted the same chair at the Tenbosch House Hotel in Brussels:

That’s exactly the color of wood I want for my chairs. The whole hotel has great design by the way.

As you can probably tell I wanted to bring some color into the room so I brought in this painting (which is a very old one of mine) and that became the jumping off point.

I’m also trying out the orange Pop chair (from the living room) in here right now but we’ll see how long it lasts. I’ll have some more peeks as I get closer to crossing this room off of my list!

(Photos: FROM THE RIGHT BANK)

With the living room and the dining room done, I’m now simultaneously working on finishing the master bedroom and family room. For today, let me show you some of my inspiration for the family room.

I’ve got a white slipcovered sofa in there like in all of these rooms and I’m just going back and forth about how much color I want to bring in. It looks a lot like this room right now:

and I really like this for the fall and winter. Then in the spring, maybe bring in some brighter colors like here:

and here:

(You might remember this from the apartment I posted earlier this year.)

Aside from the white couch, the common thread in all of these rooms is a really wonderful lived in feel – definitely what I’m going for since the family room is where we spend 90% of our waking hours.

Do you find yourself spending all your time in one room in your house too?

(Photos: 1.Vogue 2.Lonny 3.Skona Hem 4.Tavern Agency 5.Papa Stour)

***Don’t miss the Elce Stockholm Pillows Giveaway open to readers worldwide!***

Where do I even begin?

A couple of weeks ago, I went to Sherry‘s house to see what she did with two chrome chairs she had had reupholstered. She wasn’t really feeling them and when I saw them, it occurred to me that the brass chairs I had reupholstered in pink would look great in their place. In turn, her chairs (which were gray) could work in my family room.

Sherry was up for the idea so we threw one of her chairs in the car, drove over to my house, put it in my family room and sure enough, it looked great:

Then we were like, “Why didn’t we bring both of them?” Duh. We had no idea.

So we then threw my pink chairs in the car and drove back to her house. We put them where her chrome chairs had been, she pulled out two of her million pillows and we both couldn’t get over how good they looked. (Head over to Design Indulgence today to see them!) We both ooohed and aaahed over them for a while and then we had to stop because we still had to get back to my house with the other gray chair.

So off we went, back in the car with the other chair. We put it together with the other one and loved it:

Oh, and at some point we started drinking. (It was a Friday. It was late afternoon. Okay, late-ish.)

I’m still working on the shelves but I’m trying to be less shy about showing you things in progress so here you go. This built-in houses all of our travel books, albums (yes, vinyl!), about a million magazines and some souvenirs.

More photos of the family room to come …..

(Photos: FROM THE RIGHT BANK)

palette for the family room

So last week, I forged ahead with my plan and had all the furniture from my office moved to its new home in the basement. (Yipee!) But as you can see from the title, this post is not about the office (that’s coming) but rather, the family room.  It’s kind of related. Sort of. Let me try to explain.

Until last week, this gray couch – pictured here in our old living room – was in the family room.

But I decided it would make the perfect couch for the sitting area in the new office. So downstairs it went, which meant the couch that was down there had to come up. That couch looks like this (only not as red):

I’m going to have a new slipcover made for it and at first I thought I would do something neutral like this:

or this:

But I just bought this chair for the room:

(It has taken the place of the toile chair that used to be there) and I don’t want the couch to be the same color so I’m leaning toward plain ol’ white:

Part of me thinks a white slipcovered sofa is too predictable but here are the arguments in favor of it: 1. It would go well with all the white I have going on in the kitchen which is connected to the family room:

2. White slipcovers don’t necessarily have to be shabby chic. With the built-in bookshelves which are in progress in the family room, I hope the end result will be something like this:

So, did you follow all that? (Is anyone even still reading this post?)

(Photos: 1,5,&7.From the Right Bank 2.Unknown 3.James Merrell 4.House Beautiful 6.Martha Stewart 8.Nueva Estilo)