This picture collage is a mid-way shot. About half the items had been removed, and the new window is installed. You can clearly see I had painted it a bright turquoise color called Scotch Lassie by Behr (what was I thinking?). It was so bright but yet, not bright and the cement epoxy coated floors were just not doing it for me!
I had a Pinterest board going with ideas; most of my ideas centered around the want for it to be comfortable for the guys when they came over, but still classy and maybe a little shabby chic. That being said, I decided to go with the most popular neutral right now as the base color... grey. I chose the color Sterling by Behr. It was the perfect blend of grey with a bit of blue to give it the "guy feel".
I also had the brilliant idea of painting stripes... Of course I chose the wall that is 17' long...Yes all 17' of it was taped and painted in 13.78" wide stripes! Let me tell ya, my O.C.D. came out for sure!! I tried to read up on stripe painting using Pinterest and Google, and some of the best tips came from Emily's blog. I wish I would have taken pictures during the process.
Here is a picture of the after (the stripes turned out awesome).
We covered up the nasty epoxy coated cement floor with a laminate by TrafficMaster called Allure. We bought it at our local Home Depot. It's waterproof vinyl laminate. It feels and looks more like real wood than the Pergo in the rest of our house. It's great for the daylight basement and I don't have to worry about the floors getting wet or scuffed up by shoes coming in from the backyard.
I was excited when we bought a set of brown leather couches for the space, but I still need to find a coffee table/ottoman, a new TV stand and a rug or two to finish it off. As it stands now, I am totally loving the feel of our new family room! Definitely a huge transformation and a lot of work.
