Even tho the listing photos for this house were terrible (see the proof here) there was one room in them that kept making me revisit it – the living room. The room had judges paneling on the walls…which oddly is something I’ve always loved. We weren’t looking to move into a home or neighborhood like ours, we wanted an old house to gut, but for some reason this listing, even with the terrible pictures, kept drawing me back to it. When we came to view the house the first time all I could think was, “This house is so live-able.” I could see our family living there with the boys running through the upstairs and us sprawled out playing games on the floor. Admittedly the judges paneling was/is a little different, but we love it. We have lots of other plans for this room (goodbye popcorn ceiling & ceiling fan) but for the foreseeable future the wood stays.
The challenge when you move into any new home is adjusting to how your existing stuff will transition into the new space. Our old house had 3 living spaces plus a bonus sitting/office area so we had a lot of furniture to play with. This house had 1 living room and 1 basement that needed A LOT of work. We have an amazing original mid-century couch and coffee table that we inherited from my husbands grandparents that were non-negotiable ‘keep’ items for us. They are also huge. The coffee table is 5 foot by 3 foot and the couch is somewhere around 108″. That’s a long couch! The couch is a cornflower blue upholstery but I had a custom slipcover made for it years ago. The couch and coffee table lived in our old living room (you can see that space here) which was in an all white scheme. I’m thankful that I decided on all white all those years ago because when we moved into our current home with the judges paneled living room, I needed to inject white into the space as much as possible!
When working with judges paneling, real wood paneling, is figuring out how to decorate with it. (I love this post from Carla Aston about when NOT to paint wood paneling.) Wood is a good neutral, but when it’s on your walls you can’t ignore it or treat it the same as you would painted drywall. To me, the wood is a focal point so I try not to detract from it. I’ve kept this room fairly simple by keeping the furnishings white and have hung only 2 paintings. The paintings may or may not stay for the long term, but I had them so up they went.
This view gives a good idea of the overall flow of our house. One thing I like about the layout is that it’s open but not 100% open. The double story fireplace is another feature that drew us to this home. I love that the upstairs provides the kiddos their own space but doesn’t completely close them off from the rest of the home.
Because we are a family with kids – and kids have toys – I’m including this photo even tho it isn’t really ‘blog worthy’. The boys do have toys in their rooms but I am a BIG believer in having their stuff in our living spaces. I however am not big on having their items on display, which is why in this room we have two cabinets that house their toys. The green cabinet below is home to action figures, games, and other items while the white cabinet on the right of the couch holds all the legos. This green cabinet was originally intended to go into one of the upstairs rooms – which is why I painted it green. But as things go, we had a bit of a switcheroo with different furniture pieces as we were doing some changing in the boys rooms and it ended up down here. I long ago decided that blue and green would be colors we’d use through out our house (along with white/cream and brown) so luckily the green worked in here too. If I’d had to put the cabinet somewhere other than on the backside of the couch I may have not went with the green but in this case it works.
One of the reasons it works is because when you are standing behind the couch you see the painting on the mantle. The painting references the colors of our whole house color scheme, one of which is green, which ties into the cabinet.
And speaking of the painting, can I say I really love this one? I’m an art hoarder and if I’m thrifting and see an original artwork I love it’s hard for me to pass it up. I was at the thrift store one day, about to leave when a worker wheeled out a cart of stuff to stock and this painting was sticking out of it. I immediately went over and pulled it out. Seeing that it was marked just $7.99 sealed the deal and home it came! I haven’t found much about the artist online though I do see a watercolor of his listed here. I love the colors in this painting, the frame and the precision of his signature.
Right now we are 3 1/2 years into living in this house. I no longer feel like this is the ‘new’ house but I do still look around on the regular and think ‘there is so much left to do here’. I KNOW homes take time but sometimes it would be wonderful to snap and have it done! LOL
My hit list for this room:
- Ceiling scraped (why did every ceiling in the midwest have to be covered in popcorn?!)
- New light fixture
- Replace mantle with something more substantial and less rustic
- Remove carpet on stairs and replace carpet in living room (or install hardwoods)
- Clean fireplace bricks and paint fireplace cover
- Non-wood walls repainted
Truthfully this room really hasn’t gotten much attention from us since we moved in, other than the curtains of course, because the judges paneling pretty much dominates the decor. This room has been an easy ‘win’ as far as decorating goes. You know how it is when you first move in and there are so many different things to do – you have to prioritize your projects and start somewhere. This room hasn’t been our priority so far, mostly because it’s mostly alright how it is (despite the list above!) and we love the judges paneling. I think when we redo the entry and dining room walls it will only help to make this room sing even more.
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