Our New Small Living Room Layout – In the Raw

Welcome to the start of our living room makeover where the objective is to create a better design flow; make the room more usable; and improve it all around with a fresh coat of paint, window treatments and some pretty art on the walls.

We have an ongoing challenge in our home. There’s a leak in the basement and until it is fixed, we have Ken’s game room taking up a portion of the sun porch on the main floor.

I made a poor design choice when we moved in by placing the dining table in the other half of the sun porch. This set up didn’t work well at all because it was too far away from the kitchen and way too small a space for a standard dining table set.

Old design – Before

My first objective was to move the china cabinet and buffet out of the living room. I accomplished that a few weeks ago. See how much better they look on the sun porch, here.

My next objective was to find the best place for a dining area in the living room so that the room would have more of a combined living room-dining room design.

Old design – Before

Here is a how the living room has looked for over a year. The sun porch / dining area were through the entry on the right, past the TV.

The walls were never painted when we moved in, we just lived with the paint color and tried to make it work for the time being. You can read these 5 tips on living with the wrong paint color if you find yourself up against that challenge.

This is a rudimentary drawing of the design layout I’ve had in mind for the living room.

Please note, it’s not to scale and probably not even close. But close enough for me to get an idea.

The next thing I did was start measuring. Would the couch actually fit on this wall..? Is there still room for a chair…? How much space is left to walk past the TV and into the entryway…and so on.

New layout – in the planning stages

My niece helped me do some furniture rearranging and here is what we’ve come up with, so far.

New layout – in the raw

It’s pretty darn raw looking. Nothing matches at all. But this new layout has been a total thumbs up!!! At least after Ken got over the initial shock when he go home from work one night:)

Being able to sit down at a table for a meal without having to squeeze into your spot or just give up and eat on the couch in front of the TV. Can you guess which one we did most often?

Most everything is pieced together from used items, ie: the repurposed kitchen cabinet coffee table. Some of which I’ll paint or update. Others of which I will switch out for something more fitting along with painting the walls, adding curtains, artwork, etc..

As far as the kitchen goes, we’ve already created more kitchen counter space, shown in this post.

Kitchen- dining- living room combo – in the planning stage

Now I’m envisioning a half wall/counter top transition on the right side of the kitchen entry along with plenty of other changes to the kitchen. Ps: excuse the mess.

But you’ve got to start somewhere.

So there it is.

Our new small living room layout. In the raw.

Check out these  space saving changes that I made to make this room have an even better flow.

Thanks for stopping by ~ Amy