Red chairs! Red chairs! Love those!

Wow! Great job! I might hit my head on those light fixtures though :)

Amazing!!!

I think the pendulum swung a little bit too far when you went to light. I appreciate you're wanting to change from the Before, but the After is blinding me. I hope you add some more color to the walls or large pieces of furniture soon. Preferably pastels. Anyway, congrats on taking on such a big job, and for keeping the stone around the fireplace. And I like the orange pillows.

That stone fireplace rocks. Nice bar area - like the backsplash tiles very much.

So uh....what did you do with those red chairs? For real.

I'm with Texdoll...those red chairs! But overall... amazing!

Another reason the "before" was dark was that the shades were down!

I am not a member of the red chair fan club. They blocked the fireplace from the rest of the room.

Do the "before" and "after" belong to the same people? I would think at least some of the art work would have stayed.

Those red chairs would have looked awesome in such a white room (or any room in my house)!

It looks so nice and fresh - but I hope some of the rugs from the before stuck around?

Great job! I completely agree that the wood paneling made the stone fireplace disappear. It looks so fresh with the remodel. I love your new space.

I said a teary goodbye to the red chairs before I moved on to the after photo. why would you replace those with IKEA chairs?

I'll take monowhite over 100% wood paneling in the befores! Great renovation.

Wow! It looks so much better painted white. But some of the furniture from the 'before' was really nice (those red chairs!). I hope they were able to use them elsewhere in the house.

Wow! This change is really dramatic. I am glad you kept the fireplace the way it was.

I too have dark living room, even with a southern exposure. The next building blocks all but the noon day sun with about 3 feet of rays hitting the floor through a sliding glass door. The Ralph Lauren “Gallery Green” wall color doesn’t help, but I love that color.

As for the red chairs; I must have a different color setting my computer, because they look orange, like the countertop in the foreground.

To all of you who are confused/upset/critiquing the replacement of the chairs-
Kinda looks like the before pictures were the furnishings from the original owner, not the family that painted the panels white.

Wow. This Roof looks exactly like in the house we are in the process of buying. I keep researching ideas of what to do with the wood paneling, beams, and brick wall of the fire place - but this it. Looks amazing.

Roof=room

i think some plants will add charm to the "after" room. now it's a little bit COOL to me:)

Beautiful! I'm drooling over the bar area....

The white is an improvement, but I may have left the ceiling the natural wood color-- it had such an awesome rustic feel.

Stunning. The only thing I would have done differently would have been to have stained the cross-running beams and door/windrow frames in a warmer, darker wood tone to balance the dark punches from all the furniture/accessories. My eye keeps floating up to the ceiling, expecting to see something-- too much negative space. Otherwise, it's perfect.

Beautiful! I especially like the bar area. I must say that I question the wisdom of TWO seating areas immediately adjacent to each other. I would have done a casual dining area and a seating area but that's just me. I love the renovation though - the furniture looks great and the space is very bright.

Too much white! I think you went from one extreme to the other.

I know this has been said in other posts, but I'd love to see before & after pics showing the exact same view point.

This is an update that is very au currant. If you like white boxes.

MODESTALMOND,

That's exactly what I was going to say. The dark beams would have balanced well off of the dark tones of the tables.

Love the bar!

I'm with Reegs. It's more difficult to appreciate a makeover when the photos don't show the same areas.

The after isn't really my style, but it's still, 100,000,000 times better than the before!!!

I think that the problem with before wasn't the wood panelling, it was the tired old mismatched furniture and furnishings. Those red chairs are cool, but they really didn't suit that room, and it looked weird with them in front of the fireplace.
I would have loved it if they had replaced the furniture and window treatments, and kept the wood panelling. Do they even have window treatments now? The room has gone from cosy to stark in my opinion.
Bar looks awesome though.

That is a 100% turn around. So very much better it doesn't even look like the same house. Thank you for the inspiration!

Whoa, that one old chair in the original bar has the scariest head-grease spot I've ever seen!

Kudos on making a small separate TV area and not trying to tack it up over the fireplace. :D

The 'after' is too cold and, frankly, bland. From these pictures, at least, this space looks like a boring box. Leaving at least some of the wood would warm it up and have given the space some much needed character.

Wow what a difference! I would have loved to have seen the original timber ceiling and those awesome red chairs in the after shot as they would have added some contrast and colour, but that's my personal taste. In saying that you've got yourself a room that you can always update and redecorate without having to repaint walls etc. It looks great and very stylish :)

It seems so disappointing that they painted ALL the wood. I would have left the ceiling natural wood, it would look nice with the white without making it feel too dark. Its just too stark with only white.

The fireplace really pops in the after and that's great. I really wish Before and Afters of rooms took pictures from the same angle! Additional photos would be great too, but for a comparison it would really help (even if the focus points of the rooms changed so the old angle doesn't work as well to showcase the changes)

I'm a little surprised at all the lack of enthusiasm. The Before would be fine for a weekend cottage, but for day-to-day living...?! Nuh-uh. I think the re-do is a beautiful, much more livable space.

I find the After a bit too stark. While there was no doubt the Before did not benefit from the wood panelling I would have preferred to seem some natural accents.
I do love the two big orange pillows though.

"Let's put a couple orange things in this white room so people won't find out we're cold, soulless organisms." And where are the Purell dispensers?

Too much white for my taste. (Feels like a blizzard!) I prefer the photo showing the fireplace and the neutral sofa with the orange pillows. THAT amount of color in the rest of the space would greatly help.

I'm surprised of the snarky comments again! Or maybe that's just because this is my style – I love the all-white. Looks like the wood was a yellowed knotty pine...yuck. Prob looks better in the photo than in real life. And painting it white makes the room feel much airier, before the roof was so oppressing...and think how bad it would look if the walls were white and the ceiling wood! It would feel like the sky is falling!

I adore those light fixtures, too.
My only negative thought about this space was using the uncomfy sofa for the tv and the comfy chairs for "chitchat & cocktails" area. I like to lounge when I watch tv :)

Also a fan of the red chairs, but like someone commented, it's more likely that those were the "before these occupants" photo. Unlikely they'd have those curtains and rug if the after is their style.

And sorry, but YUCK to the commenter who wanted them to add more pastels...what are you thinking? Light builder beige? Yuck. Other pastels? Even worse.

But I do agree, that a few plants wouldn't hurt.

Duh, there seems to be a plant, behind the white couch!
But I could see one added to the tv console, although watering should be done carefully....

I forgot to comment, that the fireplace now looks amazing, had to go back & firth between the pics to make sure it's not a new fireplace altogether! Talk about time travel. That stone jumped to this century from the 70's with ease.

Very nice job! It's fresh, current & still warm. The sisal rug works well with your new furnishings.

I love all white but they really threw the baby out with the bathwater by painting over that ceiling. It would've kept the room from feeling anemic. It feels robbed of architectural interest somehow.

Wow. The biggest transformation was the fireplace - it's gorgeous! As is the bar area.

TONS of inspiration to be found here if one cares to look. That said, if the goal was to transform the cozy cabin feel into a beach resort hotel lobby sensation, someone's done an excellent job.

I thought the before was better - just the furnishings needed real updating. Shame about the wood (yes, I'm one of those).

As with all of these posts: this is someone's home! If they're happy, I'm happy. Might not be 100% my style, but has lots of nice ideas, and their execution of their idea was done very well. Good job! Very fresh and open feeling. Modern crossed with cottage chic.

What! Get the red chairs back home!!!! otherwise, good job!

I'm not a wood-as-sacred-object person. I don't think there's anything wrong with painting over wood. It doesn't make me sad, and I'm not angry; it's not my home.

The only thing I can say is this: I feel like this is a vast improvement, though I personally would have left the ceiling unpainted for a warmer feel. It feels a bit "boxy" with it all the same color.

This is a lovely redesign, but I think my favorite part are the red chairs in the first before photo. They are stunning.

I'm a little perplexed by the original layout - it looks as if the couches were set up so that people could watch other people sitting at the table having dinner. Freaky.

I really like the makeover, and the low-ceilinged room really benefits from all that white and the sisal carpet. To the "OMG WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE RED CHAIRS" brigade: chillax, people. The red chairs probably belonged to the previous resident, who I'm picturing as the Miss Haversham-esque person in the portrait over the fireplace. Even if they did belong to the current owners, they would either have gone to a new room, or a new home, or have been put out on the street to become the Find of the Year for someone like us. So get a grip.

The only thing I'd want is to add a little blue - the orange is a touch stark by itself against the white and beige.

As for the bar area - man, it must have been like living in an old cigar box. The new version is like a breath of fresh air.

I love this makeover, in fact I would love my home to look exactly like that. I lived in a dark panelled home for three years, and could never figure out why I felt so claustrophobic and why everything seemed dirty all of the time. Then, I moved....I gravitated to bright white homes when I was looking for a new place, when I found it, I no longer felt that claustrophobic feeling, despite the fact that my new space was smaller and less light coming in. I could never live in a panelled home again, just thinking about it makes me uncomfortable. If it weren't so difficult to clean, and if I didn't have two dogs, I would want everything in my home to be all white.

Ha ha, Lilli K.: You took such umbrage at the "snarky comments" that people made, then proceeded to say "yuck" about the knotty pine and then about >ahem< *my* suggestion to use pastels.

Since I'm sure that your question "what are you thinking?" was a sincere inquiry and not a rhetorical question, I'll answer it: By pastels I meant lighter colors rather than bold colors that, especially against all of that blinding white, I find quite jarring. (Note that the sofa with the wood frame is beige - nice! And that beige is a far more interesting background for those lovely orange pillows than white would be.)

Now, Claire did not really say what mood she wanted, she said what mood she did NOT want (heavy, dark, oppressive), so it may be that jarring or really, really bright is what she wanted. If that's the case, then she achieved it in my eyes.

Now, if you'll excuse me, Lilli, I have to go wash off this YUCK that you threw at me.

Amazed. Amazed.

Is that portrait having a wardrobe malfunction?

Major fail. Makeover lacks any imagination.

LOVE!!!!!

Shouldn't have painted the ceiling :(

I suggest painting the ceiling beams a washed grey

i'm not sure i'll ever understand painting over perfectly good, beautiful wood in this kind of application. some, sure... all? no. what happens when you're tired of living in a dingy, all-white room? stripping paint off of a ceiling sounds like no fun to me. maybe it'll just get painted over again ;)

Beutiful job but please warm it up a bit. A little wood, perhaps?

I REALLY want to see what that "artwork" is that's above the fireplace in the before photo. Looks like an old woman with angel wings wearing a shower cap. Yes!!

Looks pretty good! My only problem is with this particular white. It doesn't look intentional, but like an afterthought. As though you primed and just stopped.

OKAY white walls but why distroy the beautiful ceiling! It would have maintained a wonderful contrast. Very painful to see!

The house we are renting had wood panelling as one wall in each room. Our landlords instead of ripping it out painted it the same colour as the drywall and I'm glad they did. Now each room has a feature wall with a bit of character without having any heavy colours.

It feels good, but I think I would have liked a bleached wood ceiling (or a wiped white stain). Now it looks like a summer house all the time.

The room had so much potential before. It is unfortunate that we have been trained to see wood in a home and automatically think "paint it all white." The room actually had fairly contemporary bones and was just a victim of bad furniture and window treatments. A carefully curated collection of furniture in a mix of materials and textures other than wood would have been much more impressive and current. The white treatment actually looks outdated and of the last decade. If white was wanted, stain that allows the grain to show through would have been much better. Now it just looks like a bland tract house.

I so wish the photos were taken from the same angles in before and fater, It looks like Im looking at two different houses.

Looks bright and clean, but toooo much white and too much furniture. Looks like one would be crawling over furniture to get to another part of the room. And I can only guess that they don't have kids. I would love to see the ceiling natural or white washed. But please add some color to make the room more welcoming.

Does anybody know anything about the artwork in the after photo, the one that looks like "typeface heaven"?

Painting that ceiling was a travesty. I'm all for painting wood white when needed (we did so in our kitchen), but that ceiling... god, it was so beautiful. Was.

Some time in the future someone buys the place and goes white is too bright and strips paint to original woodwork.
Anyway, I think before and after are fine although furniture, floor coverings and art not my personal taste, but that is normal as not my home.

There's a lot I like in the new but oh, oh those cool red chairs!

A tad to yuppy for my taste, but obviously this took a TON of hard work and it certainly looks nice! Good job!

Looks great but I miss the original ceiling & those great red chairs!

This is an absolutely fabulous remodel. Some of the comments amaze me. Maybe you should be required to send in a photo of YOUR house before you comment and then we can all see where we're coming from!

diamondgirl122, i think the thing is that people submit their work here for the very purpose of receiving praise, critique, and putting their aesthetic out there. to me, critique is to be expected if you're submitting yourself to the internet (especially a "design/style" forum)... while i have wondered the same thing (about critics), i'm not sure it's actually really relevant here.

Ouf. A clunker. Looks like a bad hotel.

Love the light, retro feel of that backsplash! So cool!
I do agree (a bit) with what others are saying about the "after" living room being rather stark. But, I think the carpet warms and grounds the space nicely and makes a good argument for taking the support beams on the ceiling a few shades darker. Perhaps that will close the space in more and make the white walls seem wrapped in a warm, cozy hug. Or maybe even some floor to ceiling window panels in a similar hue to the rug with nice, dark black and geometric cast-iron rods.
Those oranges on the pillows and blanket are very retro-chic and, again, give you a nice place to jump off of to continue bringing warmth into the space.
AMAZING work. Very clean and well executed. Keep turning up the warmth!

What a bummer. You took something special and made it generic. Most dwellings are made of drywall. Now this just looks like something anyone in any builder-designed suburb could do, for cheap.

Why not leave at least the beams wood, or some of the paneling (like just the cieling) and just update the furniture and lighting. I like the zinc counter in the bar, but the rest of the bar makes me want to cry. What a waste of something special.