Home Renovation 2013: Part 3--Front Room

While browsing back through my blog posts last weekend, I realized that I never finished my Home Renovation series from last year...I'm not a very good blogger, I know. So, even though it's now over a year later, I'll try to pick up where I had left off...this is now Part 3--The Front Room!

There are 2 rooms in our house that suffered from an identity crisis and this is one of them. The "front room" as we call it, is immediately to the left as you enter the front door, and was most likely the living room of the house before the major renovation/extension that occurred during the previous ownership. The extension to the back part of the house added a great room which is where we spend most of our time in watching TV and lounging around, so there was no need for a separate living room. So, for a long time the front room was a wasted empty space that was an eyesore every time we entered the house and definitely not the first impression of the house that we wanted to give off. This is how it used to look before we decided to give it a makeover:

"front room" viewed from the front door

odd recessed "nook" next to the fireplace that served no function

As can be seen from the pictures, the room was pretty much empty--we did place couple of chairs and a small table in our attempt to make it into a sitting room and while it wasn't half bad, it still lacked character and we never ended up sitting there much. So, in tackling this room, we wanted to give it a more defined purpose, and to infuse more personality and liveliness into it. So, here's how the room looks now after the transformation:

viewed from the front door

viewed from the dining room

"nook" transformation

gained storage space

charging station--keeps all messy cables hidden out of sight with its lid closed

After much brainstorming, we decided that a mini office was the best purpose for this room. Since we already have dedicated offices where we do our "real" work in, this room is intended for light work only--to sort through mails and do some reading in. It's also where we keep things like our Garmin watches and music players charged up for a quick access before heading out the door. So, here's the breakdown:

1. We kept the paint color--we like the calming effect of the existing green and it's a nice contrast to the brown wood and the neutral whites.
2. We kept the chairs in the room for now, but we feel they are too big for the room and will eventually be replaced by something more suitable.
3. Due to the small size of the room, we chose the most minimal desk and chair that would take up the least amount of visual space, and because we got everything from IKEA, it was very cheap as well.
4. Again, to keep things light and airy, we chose a leaning ladder shelf which takes up very little space while providing a ton of space for display and organization.
5. To balance out the adjacent wall, we placed a vertical mirror (already owned) with a similar wood tone.
6. The fireplace mantel now sets a nice visual tone for the whole room--we chose a mirror instead of a painting, because we don't have any painting that's worthy of a fireplace mantel and also because we wanted to try to reflect more light into the room.
7. The biggest project for this room by far was the built-in shelf on the left side of the fireplace. We were lucky to have found a base cabinet at IKEA that was both cheap and a perfect dimension for the nook. We had the top sized and cut and stained dark brown and added new chrome hardware for the doors. We added the floating  shelves on top, painted them white and added thick molding to the front for a more visual impact. All in all, we were able to essentially convert a dead space into a full functional storage/display unit which also adds to the character of the room.

Since renovating the room, we use it much more than ever before. It's very functional and now has a definite identity of its own. It's now also a very cozy and welcoming room to step into every time we come home.