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Formal Living Room Makeover {Knock It Off}

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hey there! I'm monica 

I pride myself on making amazing style and design accessible for everyone, regardless of location, budget, or ability! My design philosophy is rooted in authenticity + attainability - If I can do it, you can too! My work has been featured in countless publications, but I take the most pride in homeowners that have been personally inspired by my DIY ideas and have tried something in their own homes!

learn more about ME + MY BIZ

Today marks our first day back to work filming for Knock It Off! We’ve had 6 weeks off so that Jess could enjoy time off with Baby Bennett– I was the lucky one to get maternity leave too!  We really enjoyed our break, but we’re also super excited to get back to helping homeowners with some awesome room makeovers!
Before we went on our break we tackled our first Formal Living Room makeover. We were super excited about the challenge because neither of us have particularly formal homes.
If you haven’t watched the episode- check it out HERE!
Here’s where the room started off…
The family had a TON of amazing pieces of furniture, but some of them were being hidden because there was a lot of stuff in the room.
We used a bright, yet sophisticated kelly green on the top portion of the walls.
And added a clean, crisp board and batten on the bottom two-thirds.
And of course, we couldn’t leave the black piano alone.  It looks okay in pictures, but it was pretty beat up and needed some love… you know what that means…
Yup! We painted it!!
(painted piano haters everywhere are cursing us! lol)
Isn’t that so much more fun?  The homeowner’s kids all play piano and they were excited to have their first lesson on their blue piano.  I kinda wanted to be a fly on the wall when the piano teacher saw it for the first time.  Mwhaha.  Actually, I heard the blue color made the kids play so well that they’re all headed to Julliard!
From the homeowner’s submission video we actually hardly noticed there was even a fireplace in the room! It was so covered up by furniture and accessories.
We narrowed down all the accessories and furniture, replaced the glass shelves with wooden ones, lined the back with fun zebra paper (we couldn’t resist adding a fun pop) and then displayed some of their amazing plate collection on the freshly painted white wall.
We kept many furniture pieces the same, but others- like the one below- we changed.  The wood dresser on the left is what we turned into a mini office on the right.  We painted it, added new hardware, removed the bottom two drawers and it became the perfect place to keep all their office supplies.  You’d never know that it’s totally functional… well minus the two printers I suppose!
The room had a huge picture window, but it was really covered up by the sheer curtains.  Sometimes people think sheers are great because they let in the light, but in this case, they were hiding so much!
We brought in 4 curtain panels (you can only see three), and even though they’re solid, not sheer- the window looks so much larger!  These curtains are IKEA curtains that we painted to have a custom feel.  You can see how to paint your own curtains in this post.
We were so happy with this room- it might have been one of our favorites from Season 1!  We can’t wait to see what season 2 has to offer!!
Check back tomorrow to see how we added the fun pop of gold on the piano wall….

 

The comments +

  1. Caitlin says:

    Loved this episode! I’m planning my own curtain painting party this week – thanks for the inspiration and the tip about using mod podge!

  2. LOVE that green! Awesome transformation!

  3. […] room makeover we did last season for “Knock It Off”. If you missed it, check it out here! If you haven’t watched the episode- check it out HERE! Today we’re showing you how […]

  4. KAthie says:

    Was that beautiful black piano a Yamaha or just an old piece of junk? Please tell me you didn’t paint a Yamaha that color, unless it didn’t have innards….

    🙁

  5. lynette says:

    I really loved what you did with the piano. I have a kitchen table I wanted to paint with very little fuss and so I tried chalkboard paint. Well, as you can probably guess, it looks awful. On the website for the show it says you used chalkboard paint. Did I buy the wrong kind of paint? Do you know if I can just paint over this with regular paint? I would appreciate any help you might be able to offer. Thank you for your show!

    • Diana Trotter says:

      Hi Lynette,

      We’re sorry to hear that your kitchen table didn’t turn out the way you hoped. Can you email us a photo so we can take a look and give you some ideas on how to fix it. Also send us a photo of the chalk paint you used. It should say chalk paint not chalkboard if you are trying to go for the same look as the piano Monica did. Email at EastCoastCreativeBlog@gmail.com. Thanks for watching Knock It Off.

    • Monica says:

      Hey Lynette- I just read back through your comment and you used “chalkboard” paint, not “chalk” paint right? They’re very different and I can see why it wouldn’t have worked great. Chalk paint is intended for furniture and other surfaces without having to do any prep work and then should be finished off with a soft wax to finish it and protect the surface. Our favorite brand is Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. Check out their website as they have lots of application tips and pictures that would be really helpful! I’m sure it will turn out great in the end- we’ve had more project flops than we can count. It’s all about working through it and trying something else. Good luck!! -Mon

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