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Formal Living Room Turned Adult Family Room

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Last Updated on July 14, 2020 by lindseymahoney

In our third flip house, we turned what was once the formal living room into the adult family room. I am a firm believer that you should design your house to fit the way you use it every day. The previous owners used the front room as a formal living room, but that setup was not practical for our family. We decided to turn this space into our “adult family room”. We planned to create a space to watch TV, a front entry drop zone, and a spot to play the record player.

The living room renovation at our third flip house was literally a race against time as I was set to give birth to my daughter in a few short months. We moved mid-April and had a punch list of projects we wanted to complete in the home before August when Evie was due. Here was what we had planned to complete in the 4 months living in our home:

 We finished our list of projects by mid-July and decided that it would be fabulous to get the floors in the house finished prior to Evelyn’s arrival. This meant that we would essentially need to move out for a week of mid-August.  The thought of getting one more big project out of the way before the chaos of two children was too enticing not to take up.  So we booked the floor installation early August & moved into our friend’s home to tear up the floors.


Adult Family Room Makeover

Demolition

Thomas helped Chris remove the hardwood and carpeting in the front room.

Living room floor demolition
Turning our living room into our family room

They also removed the pony wall to open up the space.

Opening up the front entry in our new 
 adult family room

My job was to pull the plastic off of the Pergo laminate wood boxes so they could breathe for a day. Even this simple task was a struggle with the bowling ball attached to my belly.

Pergo laminate floor installation in the family room and house

We pulled up the floors and I kept thinking, “if I don’t paint that damn accent wall I am going to have that on my to-do list during my maternity leave and I really just want to focus on my new baby!”  So I called my best gal pals and asked them to come over for a painting party.  We had the entire room and hallway painted in a few hours!

The floors took 3 days to install and the next day we moved our furniture back into the house. That same day my water broke and I gave birth to our sweet little girl, Evelyn. It was a rush to the finish line but totally worth it to have this room put together when we brought our little Evie Mae home.

Our children enjoying the adult family room makeover

Living Room Before

One quick thing to note – we knew we were going to sell this house so all of our decisions were made through the lens of attracting the most buyers. A big turnoff for many buyers is multiple flooring types in one space. The front entrance has diagonal wood flooring, the living room has carpet and the kitchen is laminate wood. The front entrance was wood, the living room was carpet and the kitchen had laminate flooring.

Original space as a formal living room

Living Room After

We installed the same flooring throughout the house to give a cohesive look. We painted the walls a calming gray for a neutral backdrop.

Formal living room turned into an adult family room
Couch | Coffee Table | Artwork | TV Console

Before

The front room was originally just a formal living room. We planned to create a multi-purpose space for the modern family.

Original living room before it became our adult family room

After

We created designated areas in this large room to create a multi-purpose space. When designing large rooms, it is important to create easy walking patterns. We pushed our couch further to one side of the room to open up the walkway into the kitchen.

This living room has been staged for the open house.

I created a small “drop zone” next to the front door to establish the front entrance area of the room. This was possible because we removed the pony wall next to the front door to open up the space.

Formal living room turned into an adult family room

Thanks for checking out my adult family room makeover!