home tour Archives - Darling Darleen | A Lifestyle Design Blog

Family Room Built Ins

Before + After of our Family Room Built Ins with TV over Fireplace

Happy New Year! I am finally sharing our Family Room Built-Ins that we did last spring! These family room photos were taken after our kitchen reveal because both rooms are connected, so I didn’t want to share these photos until after our kitchen was completed. But once the kitchen was completed, the holiday postings got in the way. Sooo, that is why I am finally sharing the before and afters of our family room built ins with a TV over a fireplace in the new year!

Originally in the family room, it was just the stone fireplace and the side walls were bumped out for a bookcase or armoire. It was the perfect set up for custom built-ins. At first we were thinking we’d just put floating shelves, but I was used to having storage in my old family room and a bookcase to display artwork and family photos. In fact, storage was becoming a problem so custom built-ins were the perfect solution.

Here are the BEFORE pictures of our family room:

This is a picture from the real estate listing

We found an independent contractor carpenter to custom built our cabinetry. I feel like this is the way to go to get a clean, simple look. I provided the designs to him and brought it to life. If you go to my Pinterest page, you can see some of my inspirational family rooms.

What I love about our family built ins is the amount of storage they provide! They also hide all of our electronics and wires for the TV and surround sounds. Once the cabinets were painted Benjamin Moore Super White, it brightened up the entire room, and it bounces off the white walls. The light from the sliding glass doors brought in so much light. I also love that it make the room much larger. I was concerned that it would make the room feel smaller, but it actually did the opposite by bringing the eye up to the ceiling. Our family room feels so much larger!

Here are some views from our kitchen:

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My Home Buying Process

This post has been sponsored by Apartment Therapy and the National Association of Realtors

Many of you know that we recently moved from Georgia to Connecticut not long ago, and I am sharing all about my home buying process over at Apartment Therapy today! I feel like I have talked about it before on one of my posts, but what started out as a smooth home buying process, ended up not quite how we thought it would. All in all, everything turned out for the best, but what a stress time for us! Thankfully, I had an amazing Realtor, and she helped us through the process and to find the home we ended up buying. Head over to Apartment Therapy to find out about my home buying process, along with a video and more house pictures!

*I know I haven’t done room tours yet. I will post each individual room soon with all the resource details! If you see any details from the AT post, just let me know in the comments below.

Exterior Home Reveal

New Paint + New Patio Gives An Updated Look

Welcome to my Home | Exterior Paint, Blue Front door || Darling Darleen

Welcome to our Home! We are coming up on our year mark since moving into this house, and I look back at how much we have accomplished! As far as what we have done on the exterior, the list is quite long. We have painted the entire house. We have fixed the flagstone around the house and added an entire flagstone patio off the kitchen and firepit. We have painted our fence and restained our garage door. We freshed up our landscape. We fixed the sprinkler system. We have done a ton of maintenance like fixing gutters, regrading our backyard, fixing exterior doors. We fixed the heating and cooling, roof and sump pump. Seriously the list is so long! Homeowner life! Since we only have a few more things on the list ,which is basically maintenance items, I thought an exterior home reveal was needed!

I’ve mentioned it before in a previous post, but we bought this house with me never seeing it until the day we got the keys. My husband basically picked it out. I only saw the house through pictures, and honestly it was not a house I would of picked. Just looking at the online pictures, there were so many things I didn’t like about the house. One item was the color of the house. Our house was painted a dark gray with black shutter. Not bad, but it looked so drabby, dull and outdated. I felt like it needed to be freshened up. Also the garage was a dark red stain. One of the first items on the house list was to paint the house white! You can see the before pictures and my paint colors line up on the exterior house paint post. But let me remind you want it looked like before:

The Reveal—

Welcome to my Home | Exterior Paint, Blue Front door with porch || Darling Darleen

Exterior Home Reveal with Porch swing on Front Porch || Darling Darleen

We ended up painting the house Steam by Benjamin Moore. I love it! So glad we went with this white color. It has the perfect amount of warmth while it’s not too bright. Steam has a little bit of yellow undertone, yet it is a very calming white. For the shutters we went completely different than what I listed on my inspiration board. We painted the shutters Chelsea Gray by Benjamin Moore, and the front door Athabasca by Benjamin Moore. I love the shutter colors! The front door changes colors throughout the day from a dark bluish gray to a brighter blue in the afternoon as the sun hits the porch. I love that I can just paint the front door any color in the future. Very versatile. For the garage door, I wanted to keep it stained because it is made out of wood and so beautiful with it’s wood grains. We had it sanded down and then I used the Sikken wood stain color Cedar. The daybed porch swing adds so much charm to our deck porch and one of my favorite outdoor spots!

Exterior Paint Reveal before and after, white house with blue door, dog on front porch || Darling Darleen

Our flagstone patio and firepit has been a great addition to the backyard. We’ve been spending every summer night out there. We have sliding glass doors that open up to the outdoor patio, and it’s easy access from kitchen to outdoor. There is also a trampoline and playground on the opposite side of the yard. We love how it is a great way to spend evenings together as a family.

My Georgia Home Tour

My Georgia Home Tour

This summer has been a whirlwind of moving, traveling then moving again. I can’t believe how quickly summer has flown but also how much it has dragged on and on. Moving took a lot out of me if I am going to be honest. I never thought it was going to be easy, but this was something else. I’m glad this is all sorted now. A friend of mine is currently in the moving process to a house near little lake, so I thought I would give her some advice, to help make the move a lot easier. Moving is exciting but there are so many different things that need to be considered. As she basically lives on the other side of the world, I was doing some research and recommended she looked into something like ConveyOnline service these suburbs, just so she knows that when it comes to the legal documentation of moving, she doesn’t have to do this alone. It is always great to know that there is someone out there willing to give you a helping hand, especially from people who know what they are doing. This was a really good tip that someone gave me, so now I feel I should offer it to anyone who needs help when it comes to moving. Anyway, we have been unpacking our new house in Connecticut. I finally have my computer up, wifi and a little spot in my new office to work. But everything is still a complete mess, and we are still mostly in boxes, which makes me nostalgia for my home life in Georgia. Moving is the worst on so many levels! One tip I would give if you are moving house, is to make a list of your new local emergency contacts just in case, for example, if you’re moving to Perth you might need a locksmith in Bentley quickly. So since I’m in this sentimental stage I thought I need to give you my Georgia home tour since I haven’t really given the grand tour, just bits and pieces of rooms. I will say when we bought the house six years ago it was not a house I really liked. The whole house was painted yellow inside and there was a lot of brown. Very southern especially with it’s sweeping staircase. But slowly I made it my own. Just before we put it on the market I really loved the home, and we created so many wonderful memories there. We lived right outside Atlanta and had the convenience of a big city but our neighborhood backed up to a little river and a private nature preserve with walking trails. We felt like we had our own little forest in our backyard. I’m excited to give you my Georgia home tour:

Entry Way

The entry way was the selling feature of the home with its grand curved stair case and two story ceilings. I always felt a little embarrassed by its grandiose entrance especially when friends came over but I tried to keep it minimal and welcoming with seating and a basic cow hide rug (which is the best rug for a lot of foot traffic!). I made the DIY entry metal bench, which had storage for shoes and a place where guests could place their bag. Having the piano in the entry way was such a great idea because every time my kids walked past it, which was multiple times a day, they would sit down to play it.

Family Room/Great Room

This was the room where the family hang out most of the time. We watched TV here, played board games, held parties. I really loved how the great room opened up to the kitchen area. These two rooms were our favorites and are missed the most. I pulled all the wooden blinds down and added curtains and made the roman shades (which I still need to do a how-to post). We had the two sofas reupholstered to the current fabrics. They used to be brown and yellow! We added the orb chandelier. Check out how I styled our built-in bookshelf. And check out how to make your own DIY copper planters and DIY copper blanket ladder.

Kitchen

I’ve posted my kitchen frequently through my social media outlets. My kitchen is your typical white builder-grade kitchen. When we first moved in all the handles were dark brass and there was no pendant lights over the island or chandelier over the kitchen table area. We made those changes pretty fast and it brought beautiful visual interest and was a fairly easy update.

Office

My office is right off the entry way so I wanted it to be another inviting room but also functional for my every day needs. I recently posted all about my office studio and the inspiration behind it along with many more photos! Find out more along with resource guide.

Dining Room

This is the room that gets the best morning light! We added wallpaper to the room to add visual interest. We bought the ikat wall paper at a local wallpaper store and I can’t remember what the style or brand! The dining room table is my favorite from Restoration Hardware along with the white pleather chair that have held up so well with children after so many years.

Guest Bedroom

You can read more about my Guest Bedroom, which I posted many of the resources. The gold framed art pictures were an easy watercolor DIY. Our guest bedroom was located on the main level.

Powder Bathroom

You can see the before and after pictures of our powder bathroom. We wallpapered the entire bathroom and I still love that trellis wallpaper! It’s amazing how a few easy updates can drastically change the look of a room even in a bathroom.

Boy’s Bedroom

I just recently posted all about the boy’s bedroom. This was a room I ignored for a while! But slowly the room came together. The boys loved this room. The final decorating piece we added was the pendant light, which I was so sad to part with. Such a fun light! Check out all the resources on the original boy’s bedroom post.

Girl’s Tween Bedroom

Another favorite room that we are sad to part with or at least the wallpaper! We still are so obsessed with that wallpaper and it’s been over 5 years! This was a room I quickly put together shortly after moving into the house. You can find all the resources and additional photos on the original girl’s tween bedroom post!

Master Bedroom

Okay our master bedroom was the VERY last room…or two that we furnished, partially because it was so large and needed a lot of furniture. I did a few DIYs in the room like our dresser (which isn’t pictured) but you can see the before and after of the dresser. Also I lacquered the two tall bamboo mirrors that are beside the bed. The little tub chair was a garage sale find that I reupholstered. I should of done a little more posting on that cute chair because I love it and love how it came out with the complementing solid and print fabrics! You can, however, see the before pictures of the chair. The two tall lamps was a flea market found that my friend found for me. I lacquered the middle section white and then spray painted the bottom and top gold and replaced the shades for new ones. I really wanted to do a few more things to this bedroom so I wouldn’t say it was completed but close to it!

Thanks for coming along my Georgia Home tour! We have loved this home but are excited to change up the new home we are have moved in! Let me know if you have any questions about resources. I will try and answer!

Shared Boy’s Bedroom

Shared Boy’s Bedroom

Finally, I am posting pictures of my sons’ shared boy’s bedroom. This darling shared boy’s bedroom has actually been done for quite some time, but I never loved the original light fixture in the room and a few other random things that I wanted to change. I finally feel like I got everything in place and the current light fixture has tied all the design elements together. I also thought I should get this posted because now my older son wants his own bedroom! Guess I’ll be looking for kids chairs and more furniture soon. Still, I really do love this room and feel like we maximized the space. My boys read a ton of books, so I knew we needed an open bookshelf. And the boys wanted some kind of workspace to do homework and write their stories, which my younger son is really into (he wants to be an author when he gets older :)). I originally was planning to wallpaper the room like their sister’s, but I knew we’d be packing a lot into this room and I didn’t want it to be too busy and sometimes wallpaper can make a space smaller. Also, the oversized world map is the main focal point. We love it, and often times stand all around it looking up countries. I bought it at Ikea, but I’m not sure if they still carry it, so I linked a few other options below. The light fixture was a flea market find, and I am kind obsessed with it! I really feel like I score on that one. I linked similar styles below. The shaker dresser was actually my husband’s dresser that he used as a child. This was actually a very good idea, as it meant we didn’t have to buy a new one. With that being said, that didn’t stop us from checking out furniture here on antiques world. We’re getting quite used to the idea of vintage/used furniture and we can see why people go with this aesthetic.

Anyway, I haven’t changed the color of the wood or anything but did switch out the handles. I love the simplicity of it and that is an heirloom. It really has held up quite well. The old furniture is made so much better than new furniture. We did a small little work station right near the door with wall shelves and the sizing has worked perfectly for the boys. The boys’ beds were originally bunk beds that I used when they were smaller and then it converts to two twin beds, which has been perfect since they are older. I even managed to get them both a new mattress from the same place I recently purchased by own king size mattress, they have been sleeping straight through the night since they are just so comfy! I love that we have really maximized the use of these beds! Let me know what you think! All resources are below and if see something not mentioned, please let me know.