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A PLAYROOM FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY

Reading time: 3 Minutes

We live in a Wisteria Lane type neighborhood where everyone waves at each other from our cookie-cutter Colonial homes. A few times a year, neighbors host each other for progressive dinners, Mardi Gras, or just a backyard extravaganza. Since our houses are all the same-ish, I always have to peek to see how they have decorated what we call “the fireplace room”.

This room has baffled us since we moved in. Its gorgeous red brick facade fireplace is nestled between two awkwardly placed windows.

Many folks are using it as their TV room, while others have it staged as a sitting room. Since we come and go through the garage, this room is the first thing people see when they come into our house. Unfortunately until last week, the only phrase to describe our space was hot mess.

As much as I loved the red brick, it made the room dark – even with a light and bright coat of Revere Pewter on the walls. Also, since the room was not our “style” we had very little incentive to make it look nice. In fact, it pretty much looked like the kids’ toys vomited all over the room. It was not a space we were proud of.

On a whim and to my husband’s horror, I grabbed the trim paint for the room and painted the fireplace.  Just this little change made a HUGE difference. My room went from dark to bright in one day. Still a poorly defined space, but at least it was bright!

Now before you tell us that we just ruined the home value or something else like that by painting our fireplace, know that we plan on being here permanently and would rather love the space we live in today than plan for a potential someday in the far, far future.

So, we painted the fireplace and were left with a very messy blank slate. While looking for a new rug on RugsUSA for my office space (I’ll show you that finished room below), I fell in love with this gorgeous Kelly green and white ikat chevron rug. The rug was the new inspiration for the room, adding a punch of color to our neutral canvas. You love it, right!?!?!

I am truly in love with this rug. It is huge and so bright and playful. It feels young like our young and spirited family!

Here’s a closer look at Billy the Bison, a creation from Cardboard Safari, one of my new favorite Made in the USA companies. I thought this piece would be a quirky way to show that my husband is a Colorado Buffalo for life (Go Buffs!).

This is the large piece. They also make a giant and a small version and tons of different animals in white, traditional, and prints. It was super easy to put together – and makes a fun and eco-friendly statement in my new living/play room!

Here’s the view from the couch. Isn’t that dimension amazing?!?

I took our misused IKEA storage unit and grabbed some fabric bins from Target to hide the kids’ toys. Huge difference from the mess in the first photos, eh? We hung our original Dr. Seuss print over top to add some playfulness to the space.

You might remember the purply sofa from our office makeover. A hand-me-down from our cousins 10 years ago, we love this IKEA sleeper sofa. However, the seats showed their age. A new cover ordered from Amazon took our old sofa from worn to wow! An easy, cheap investment that will allow us to keep and use this seating for many more years.

Here is the space in the office where the sofa was settled before we decided to turn the house upside down. To make room for each of the boys to have their own space, we move the wall to wall bookcases out of the (former) guest room to make space for our oldest. The logical place to move them was downstairs to our office. Remember the makeover we gave the office last year?

Of course we needed a new carpet to redefine the space, so Rugs USA sent this gorgeous jewel-toned 5′ x 8′ rug for the space. Let’s be honest, I was a little tentative about ordering a rug online sight unseen. However, after receiving two gorgeous rugs from the company (one purchased, one provided for review) I would 100% buy other rugs from them. Both rugs were true to their photos and descriptions. The rugs I received are both plush and finished. Delivery was super fast and the prices are unreal.

I was really impressed with the selection. I knew I wanted something modern or geometric in a bright color, and I was able to narrow my searches to find the rug that was right for me. What kind of rug do you need to wake up your tired spaces?

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