Play Room Updated To A Colorful Family Room

Submitted by Crafty Texas Girls

 

Last week I wrote about the ‘evolution of a home‘- as the people inside your home change and grow, your home must adapt. Your home is for you. So find a way to make it work for your family!
With that being said, we just finished making our upstairs more ‘useful’ for our family. Last year I spruced it up and made it into a sweet a playroom for the girls. I organized the toys, stenciled the wall, and added some of my favorite colors: tan, black and white.

But over the year, our family changed and we found ourselves needing another living space. Another ‘family room’ to watch tv, play games, read, and relax. So we started moving furniture around, donating some toys to Goodwill, painting, building, and doing a little ‘upcyclying’.

We started with a photo I found on pinterest from allthingsthrify.com– it was a turquoise frame around a mounted flat screen tv. And then it took off from there! I am fortunate that it’s winter- my husband is always looking for a good project during the ‘off season’ of lawn mowing 🙂

Jeff used L-brackets to build a mounting kit. You can buy one at the store pre-made for around $100, but following a tutorial he found on you tube, he built our tv mountfor $16. The wall that the tv hangs on backs up to attic space. So he was able to easily run the wiring behind the wall.

We found a great frame at Hobby Lobby- half off!- and painted it turquoise. Then Jeff added some wood to the back so it would hang flush with the wall.

Once the tv was in place we still needed some kind of furniture to hold some toys, the dvd player, and the fios box. I looked for a dresser for weeks and just couldn’t find anything. Then one day, as I was standing in front of Maisy’s changing table– it hit me. She is 2 and half, and will hopefully be potty-trained soon. Why not move her changing table out of her room and into our new family room?

Jeff added a decorative scroll that we found at Lowes to the front and then nailed bead board to the back. Then we spray painted it silver. Changing table to media console! Pretty good ‘upcycle’ don’t ya think?!

Next we worked on the bookshelves. I have long admired bookcases painted with a pop of bright color.  Originally I wasn’t sure what color to do. I love turquoise, but I thought it might be too much since the frame around the tv already boasted that bright blue. But when I found this rug at World Market, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Add a little orange! Wouldn’t the people at Pantonebe proud of me? 🙂

Jeff decided that painted bead board would be easier to install than acutally paint the inside of our book case. Plus if we ever change our minds, it is easy to pop it out. I like the texture that the bead board adds too.

The accessories for the book case were all found  by “shopping our home”. I have decided I really can’t give anything to Goodwill (except for outgrown clothes or toys) because I just might use it again. This project was the perfect example of that.

But I am glad that other people are donating their furniture to Goodwill– because that is where I found this adorable solid wood coffee table for $10 and this great cane side table– also $10. All they needed was a coat of new paint.

I added two new pillows from World Market and then used pillows that were in various places in the house. I moved around our pre-existing art and add a new piece (the tree and bird) from Hobby Lobby.

Overall I was pretty surprised at how many things I already owned to put the room together. And what we didn’t have, we found via thrifting. Beside the World Market and rug and pillows- the room was pretty inexpensive!

And in case you are wondering- since the changing table moved out of Maisy’s room, we were able to rotate some of the bigger the toys out of the new family room and into the girls’ rooms. Win-win!