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Our Living Room Before & After

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Our living room has been a point of major contention in our lives. It seems everyone has had some opinion to enter the debate and voice their opinion on what we should do with our space. Luckily, we came to a great compromise between ourselves and our family and friends! Phew.

When we purchased the home, one of our must-haves was a common living space with tall ceilings. Initially, our plan was to keep the paneling up and just paint it, but some of our family and a few friends were really insistent that we should paint it. We fought it at first since I love the look of painted paneling, but when we spoke to our contractors about what are options were, they said they thought there might be existing drywall under the paneling, The only way to be sure? Rip it out! 😀

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Luckily for us, they were correct! They did a little patching and re-texturing to the damaged areas and we were good to go. The only decision left was the paint color…and we went with white (Brilliant White by Benjamin Moore to be specific)! Anyone surprised? 😀

The second point of contention was between Scott and I on the wood trim and baseboards. I was on team Paint Everything White while he was really digging the  wood tones. Since he gave me the pink bedroom, I gave in to the wood trim with the asterisk of being able to change it in the future if it was too dark.

Luckily for us both, we LOVE the wood trim and beams! It gives the room a much richer historical look and preserves the original character which is really important to us. I think they’ll be a permanent fixture in our home! 🙂 We did decide to paint the built-in cabinet white to match however.

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We are still going back and forth on whether we want to whitewash the brick fireplace like we did at the last house. Any thoughts?

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And here’s the other side of the room:

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What do you guys think? Did we make the right decisions? I got overruled twice but was happy with the results each time, luckily! 🙂 Next we need to get some furniture situated. 🙂 Stay tuned!

Photo of Tania Griffis, owner of Run to Radiance
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Tania Griffis is an accomplished writer, blogger, and interior designer with a Journalism degree from the University of Oklahoma. She started her popular blog, Run to Radiance, in 2011, demonstrating her design expertise through the personal remodeling of six houses to millions of readers across the globe.

Tania also owns The Creative Wheelhouse, a respected ghostwriting agency for bloggers, further showcasing her talent for creating engaging and informative content.

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13 Comments

  1. It looks so much brighter and happier! I’m with you guys and love the wood trim and beams. I’m not sure what I think you should do about the fireplace, that brick isnt my favorite brick but I think it looks good in the room. I think you should get furniture in the room and then decide!

  2. I am loving how bright the space looks without the dark paneling. I am a huge fan of wood beams, so I love those!!! I am with Katie on the fireplace, it depends how you are going to decorate the room. I love the white fireplaces in the french country chic kind of looking rooms. Or if it was going to be super contemporary it would work with that too.

  3. ooooh i love that built in, especially painted white. i honestly don’t know about the fireplace though, i’d say go with your gut? it does look a little out of place right now with everything else being white, but maybe you just need to throw some furniture in there to balance it out.

  4. I love how light and bright it is. But the wood baseboard and beams are nice – they do add something special. I vote yes for whitewashing the brick!

  5. I think the room looks lovely….I do like the contrast of brilliant white with the dark….Love seeing the progress:)
    I especially love the people that live in this home:)

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