How to Take a Room from Good to Great

What happens when something about a room just isn’t right? You like it but you don’t love it. It works, but doesn’t operate like a well oiled machine. You stand there staring at the room thinking something is just off. We’ve all been there, and sometimes narrowing down why we are there can be a challenge. This is a feeling that I have experienced in most of the rooms in my house, so I thought it would be fun to dissect it together and learn how to take the “hmmm” out of the room and insert the “ahhh” of a satisfied feeling of a room well done.

Let’s use the example of the Mego Cave – a room that is a multi-function odd-ball room. We probably all have one of those. It used to be a carport that the previous owners converted into a real living space. It started like this:

Currently it looks like this:

There’s been a lot of progress in the room including:

• Painting the room
• A new door desk
• A side of the road chair
• Two new rugs (here and here)
• Two new light fixtures (here and here)
• Modernizing the china cabinet
• Putting up picture shelving
• Accessorizing with huge maps, shelves, and DIY artwork
• Painting and styling a bookshelf
• Making Roman shades from mini-blinds
• Organizing the closet into a multifunction space

It has definitely come a long way but it just isn’t there yet. It’s just a feeling I have when I look in the room. As my dad said when we were sitting in there chatting while he was visiting a few weeks ago, “It’s [pause] eclectic.” Eclectic I love – but I think his pause really spoke more than the eclectic. I think it is a little scattered and busy. It needs something to bring it all together.

I thought I would remedy this by mentally ripping it down to a bare room and then rebuilding it. In the beginning I didn’t have a plan like I did with the sun room, and I know that rooms ebb and flow with random finds and such, but I am all into planning a room to help bring some unity to the room.

Let’s start at the very beginning (it’s a very good place to start). I started by asking myself a series of questions.

What do you want the room to feel like? More importantly, how do you want to feel in the room?

I want the room to be bright and happy – but not too bright that it isn’t welcoming. Cheery comes to mind. I want the room to embrace color but in a softer way – so I guess this means I want a softness in the room that envelopes me, makes me want to stay. I want to feel inspired but relaxed, happy but not hyper. Motivated.

What items help bring this feeling into the room?

• That blue chair. It wasn’t what I originally picked for the room but having the hubby so excited about finding it on the side of the road for me brings up so much love every time that I think about it that it bubbles up. I want to keep the item that makes me feel loved. I also LOVE the navy blue pop.

• Both light fixtures. They are beautiful, bright, happy, and a little blingy. I always want to feel sparkly in my room.

• The picture shelves. I picked those out with my Mom in her first trip to Ikea and I think the artwork is the perfect vignette of what I am wanting this whole room to look and feel like – bright, happy, and inspiring – with a whole lotta love.

• The Roman shades made from mini-blinds. My favorite.project.ever. It’s perfect. It makes me feel inspired, motivated, and empowered since this was one of my first sewing and more involved DIY projects.

Here are items that I love the concept but perhaps not the execution. They may detract from the room’s feeling.

• The China cabinet: I love that there is so much storage in a beautiful manner. But is it too heavy? Too dark? Too wood? I don’t think it is adding the qualities of bright cheeriness I am looking for.

• The bookshelf: I love me a good bookshelf but this one may be adding to the clutter I am feeling. Perhaps I just need to tone it down? Get one with doors? Make it less of a focal point?

• The loveseat and its side tables: This loveseat is SO comfy. It’s a hand-me-down present from my Mom. I love the feeling it gives but the look is something I am on the fence about. I think this will be one of the last items I change because of the feeling it evokes – but I also am a big advocate of not getting so sentimental about “Stuff” that it clutters your life. Also, the side tables just don’t feel right.

• The desk: I fell in love with this desk on Craigslist BUT it might be a little too chunky rustic. It also doesn’t offer a whole lot of clean lines and storage that may help this room feel less cluttered.

• The ironing board: Random. But I may lose thing battle. Eric needs a good ironing space for his shirts and if this is where he needs to iron then so be it. I think that adds to the love in the room right?!
• The table: I think I’m on board with this table – it is gorgeous but maybe the table cloth is just wrong for the room.

What do you want the room to function as?
• First and foremost I want it to be my desk/creativity zone/craft room/project room. That needs storage and a big work space. That means I need a nice big desk – INSPIRATION ALERT – perhaps the dining room table could be my desk?! Heck, we’ve used it once a year at most in the past three years. I could clean off a desk once a year. Wow, real time ideas flowing right now.

• Secondly, I want it to be a relaxing, hangout, no-TV room. I want there be enough seating for a conversation area and comfy places for a snuggly reading space (for me) or napping space (for Eric). That means at two separate pieces of furniture – like the chair and loveseat.

Based on the questions above, I thought it would be helpful to determine a color palette to help build the room again and make the room feel cohesive. I thought I would start with the items that are staying in the room: the chair, the light fixtures, the rugs, the wall color (although negotiable).

• Neutrals: dark wood, grey, mint green (Tempered Spring by Valspar)
• Pops: navy blue, pink/fuchsia, gold/metallics

Now I can move forward with those elements in mind and build one cohesive room, not a room with lots of different segments around it.

What’s my plan now?

1. Empty out all the contents I don’t love. Get ’em outta there! Sell them, donate them, give them new life elsewhere in the house. Then you will see what you love and slowly begin to fill in again.
2. Really sit down and brainstorm and talk it out with my man. It always helps to be in the space, sit down and sketch, move things around, and talk it out.
3. Write a list of items to buy and items to make.
4. Do it!

So this isn’t going to happen right away (why hello holiday season) but just the process of breaking down the room and identifying the problem areas, what I love, and how I want the room to feel makes me have direction and purpose. Isn’t that really all we need to get a room into tip-top shape? So I will be sharing it each step of the way as I transform it from good to gee-golly-wash-I-love-it. Cause darn it, that’s how each room should make us feel!

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