I do what I want

I may have mentioned five or 95 times that I do not like the way we set up our family room when we built our house. I so wish would have just gone with the model specs – cause they worked.

But no, no, no. We had to be all, Let’s smush the windows together. Yeah! And, Let’s put in a corner fireplace, it will be so cool. YEAH! And, Let’s have all of the TV and surround system wiring installed in the itty bitty wall right next to the (awesome!) corner fireplace. Yeahhhhh!

None of these things work. :) Both hubs and I have said for quite some time that our family room is the only space that bothers us in our house. And we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Drats.

When we have a party, the family room seems to get so cramped – because it is. We like to call it cozy, because it is. :) But the thing is, it’s not a small room – it measures 16 by 18 feet (at the longest points). That's HUGE!

Other than the way we set it up, there’s a few other issues. First of all, much of the room is a walkway between the garage and the rest of the house. Then, there’s the fact that we only have one full wall in the whole space. Open floor plans are great, but they come with their own issues. :) And finally, we’ve had a regular sized sofa and a loveseat in the room:

It’s a lot of furniture for this space. And I tell you what…by the end of last year it was starting to drive me a little mad.

I chalk it up to the end of the season hives that start popping up right before Christmas…the desire I start getting to get our house back to normal. Clean. Spacious. I love that feeling of putting everything away and having our house feel brand new again!

I had an idea that would help solve the cramped cozy feeling in the room…I was going to take out one of the sofas.

But I hesitated. I mean, was I allowed to do that? Really? Remove seating?

Would the sun stop shining? The birds stop chirping? The world fall off it’s axis?

And then I realized…geez Louise. It’s our house. We’re allowed to do whatever we want. :) As long as we like it, who cares? I could remove it all and put floor pillows in there, and as long as we like it and our guests were comfy, why does it matter?

So I did it. As soon as Christmas was packed up, I started. First, I pulled the loveseat out of the way and eyed it. I LOVED IT. I pulled it away even further, and I was SOLD.

Hellooooo space!!!:

Even though I loved it, it took some getting used to. I kept asking myself, am I really allowed do this? We only have seating for three or four people now.

But, interestingly enough – only three people live here. ;) And at the most, when my stepdaughter is home from school, it’s four.

Perfect.

One of us ends up on the floor half the time anyway. So…I called hubby to look, and his first reaction was I LOVE IT. Then, it was, wait…is it OK to not have another place to sit?

Seriously, are there couch police or something?

I never looked back though. Every. single. time. I walk in our house now, I feel lighter. We have space people!:

The only bad part – now that there’s no loveseat to block it, we can see all the critters, cords (GAH!!) and cars that live in the dust under the dresser:

It’s a price I’m willing to pay. :)

Removing the loveseat has quite literally doubled our usable space in here. No longer is the Bub quarantined to a five by four foot space to play. We can spread out to play games. I actually have plenty of room to lay down and do sit ups:

Stop laughing!

Wait, that’s me. Laughing. At myself. I don’t lay down and do sit ups. :)

Soon we will be getting a new sofa (with a chaise attached) after we finish paying off our debt. We hope to fit a small chair in the room as well, but we’ll have to see. (The current furniture is in sad, sad shape, which I’ll show you soon.)

But in the meantime, I found an adorable little poof on clearance at Meijer:

 

It’s so freakin’ cute! It’s really an ottoman, but it looks like one of those poofs to me. For $35, it serves as an extra seat that we can move around the room. LOVE!

Now, because I caught it in action, I will show you the daily occurrence at our house – the throwing of all the pillows on the floor. I give you, for your viewing pleasure, my son and his thought process…

Oh, look at that! What a pretty, soft pillow! I should lay my head on it!:

But noooo, why would I do that? It would look so much better on the floor. Daddy agrees, he does it every day too. I’m just gonna put it right down…

On. the. floor. It’s SO much better there, right?

And…he’s laughing. Awesome.

Anyone else have this problem with the children/men in their lives? :)

You know what’s funny? It’s been pretty awesome to have just one sofa – we’ve ended up all cuddled together every evening. (I’d like to say that was my plan all along!)

And I figure, if we have a party before we get a new sofa and need more seating, we’ll just pull out the folding chairs. EGADS. (Heaven forbid.)

It’s worth it to me:

Here’s a few before and after shots – with the loveseat:

Sans the loveseat:

With:

Without:

I tried removing the end table to the left of the sofa, but it was a bit too stark for me. For now, it’s staying. (This angle makes it look like it’s sticking way out, but it’s not.)

I love the change!! I was able to pull the sofa away from the wall a bit, which always bugged me. Because we don’t have to worry about the loveseat sticking out, I also pulled the sofa closer to the TV, so we have a BUNCH more space in the eating area in the kitchen. It fixed a number of issues that bugged me for YEARS about our great room space.

I’ve been thinkin’, and have a few more ideas for a slight reworking of this room. It will depend on how much the quote is from some professionals, but I’ll let you know if anything comes of it. :)

For now, we’re enjoying what feels like a brand new family room!

Before:

And now….ahhhhh:

It may not be for everyone, but that’s OK. It’s our house and whateva whateva, we do what we want! (Name that show.)

Now…if I could just get rid of that massive subwoofer next to the TV cabinet, all would be right in my world. (They make smaller ones, but for a much larger price.)  :)

Is there something you’ve held back on doing in your house because you feel like it’s not allowed? Who said? Who cares? It’s YOUR home. Enjoy it, live in it. Do what makes it more comfortable for YOU. :)

P.S. The rug is from HomeGoods. The coffee table from Goodwill. The drapes I made myself. The sofa table is from Ikea. The dresser was a Craigslist find. :) You can all of the family room posts here.

P.P.S. The loveseat is in the basement. I shoved it down there today by myself – it has been in our dining room for a week, and I couldn’t take it anymore. :) Hear me roar! Or call me crazy.

P.P.S.S. (??) We’ve tried the layout every single way possible before now – I mean…every. single. way. The loveseat is too long to go in front of the window – it goes right up against the fireplace and looks odd. Then the long sofa is pushed way too far out in the walkway. Angling the sofa makes for a weird configuration with the sofa table/kitchen. (Thank you for the ideas though – you never know if something will work!!)  :)