This living room was in desperate need of a make-over and I’ve been dying to update it with some farmhouse style touches! The front entrance opens straight into the living room with no foyer. It had a weird little partition wall at the entrance, to create the illusion of a foyer, but it only made the entrance cramped and awkward. Besides the space issue, or lack there of, the drywall was a mess from many years of wallpaper and people just painting over it. I totally understand that removing that stuff is a terrible job but seriously, painting over it? Is that ever really an option? No, no it’s not! Here’s what it looked like before.
Anyway, all that to say, the space had absolutely no character at all. So, we created the character it was missing and added some farmhouse charm along the way! Built-in bookshelves, colonial style window and floor trim and new DIY curtains really helped to update the space. But, my favorite changes are the fresh looking shiplap wall in the entryway and the barn-board wall in the living-room. Cause seriously folks, does anything say farmhouse more than shiplap and barnboard?
Now, I know what you’re thinking…no Dana, you can’t have 2 feature-walls, cause then it’s not a feature-wall anymore! OK, you’re not wrong, but in this case, I think both focal walls help to define the space in their own way and really help to create the illusion of two rooms instead of just one big living room.
Below are a couple before and after pictures of the entry way area.
Front entrance make-over
Before: Living room partition wall made the space cramped
Partition wall separating entryway from living room
After: Removing this wall from the entry way and living room opens everything up
No foyer entryway into living room
Shiplap – Oh I love a fresh shiplap wall 🙂
Yep, there are still lots of finishing touches to add but overall, I’m loving how much more open and bright the space feels now that the sunlight can spread through the entire room. The couch divides the entrance way from the living-room space and overall, it just makes the room feel so much more inviting. It’s more functional now too because people aren’t tripping all over each other when they come in. Here is another picture to show how the shiplap turned out.
Shiplap wall in entryway
Living room make-over
Ok, enough about the entryway… moving on to the living-room area. Remember the part about this room having no character? Well I found an awesome solution from Shadesofblueinteriors.com. She did a beautiful job in her living room with her built-in cabinets and barn-board wall. Check it out here. When I saw this, I knew it would work perfectly in our little bungalow as well.
Here is a picture of the wall before we added the barn-board. It was the wall behind that oh so lovely couch from 1982 🙂
Living room before built-in bookshelves and barnboard wall
Built-in Bookshelves – I love them!
IKEA bookshelves and wall before barn-board
We used IKEA Billy bookcases and an IKEA Besta TV bench for the center bench. They were too short so we built base cabinets out of MDF to go under them. The plan is to add doors to these base cabinets later. So many projects, so little time!
Barn-board Wall – a perfect focal wall for this living room makeover
Preparing the barn-board feature wall
The barn-board wall is made completely from salvaged pallet wood. It takes a while to pull all the nails out but it is so worth it! You can buy wood from Home Depot stained to look weathered, but I love finding and using pallet wood cause it’s free! Our wood was different widths and some pieces were more weathered than others so we sorted them out on the floor first, to figure out what boards should go where.
DIY Bench Cushion
Finally, I made a DIY no sew bench cushion for the center bench. It’s super easy, only requires some MDF, high density foam, glue, a staple gun and whatever fabric you like. I love using fabric from sheet sets I find on sale, because they’re affordable, you get tons of fabric and there are lots of great farmhouse patterns out there right now. Check out my step-by-step tutorial and try making your own.
DIY no-sew bench cushion
And that brings us to the final-ish look! Next up on the agenda for this farmhouse style make-over is hardwood floors and crown molding. I’ll share an update when it’s all finished.
Living room & entryway make-over
Thanks so much for checking out my living room make-over! Leave me a comment below if I can answer any questions and I’d love to hear about your projects too! If you enjoyed this, please share it on Facebook or Pinterest. Ciao for now!
Sources:
- Wall colour: Fagiolo – Sico Evolution, Eggshell
- Trim colour: Simply White – Benjamin Moore, Eggshell
- Bookshelves & bench: IKEA Billy bookcases & IKEA Besta TV bench
- Coffee table: DIY
- Curtains: DIY
- Couch: Urban Barn – Sofia Sofa – Orca Flannel
- Bench cushion: DIY
- Chunky knit blanket: DIY
- Light fixture: Home Depot
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