Amanda send us info about all the projects she and her husband Ben have been doing at home. They are working on their first house, a 60s single family ranch and have taken on all sorts of repairs and decorating updates. One of our favorites is this redo of the entertainment area in the living room...
Ben, clearly a talented DIYer, built the new entertainment center himself. It provides great storage as well as adding some architectural interest to the room. Note the paint color switcheroo too, turning the chair rail (and below) along with the crown molding and ceiling white, while painting the wall a darker warm tan. A nice, clean change - oh and the new, streamlined tv doesn't hurt either!
Check out lots more of Amanda and Ben's place at: Our Humble A{Bowe}d
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This is such a refreshing update, I wish that they would have taken another shot stepped back to match the Before picture. Either way it's much cleaner and brighter than the previous incarnation.
Medeina @ http://whencatsfish.blogspot.com/
I agree with previous photo about "comparison" photos. They should be from the same spot, same angle, about the same view, same proportions, etc. The second photo doesn't show the changed area in relation to the rest of the room and is, therefore, meaningless to me.
I love Amanda's blog, she and Ben are very talented and their house is looking great. So nice to see her featured here!
Impressive work! And beautiful color.
great use of a nook space and more proof the best way to incorporate a big tv into a space isn't to hide it but surround it with pretty things.
OMG I had to scroll a few times between the before and afters! A built in looks perfect in the nook. Post like these are really inspiring because it's amazing how big a difference small changes make on the overall feel of a room.
Meaningless? Really? Can't figure it out?
the after is lovely. Great update!
Huge improvement!! It's a beautiful built-in, and the subtle wall change makes a big difference.
Well done :)
Check out their blog--the transformations in the whole house are great! Quite a DIY project. It's amazing how much the dark-painted trim dulled each room.
Builtins make such a big difference, don't they?
Thanks for the feature and your kind words, everyone! Medeina and mei-ling, here's a shot that's a little more similar to the before shot:
http://ourhumbleabowed.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/img_9138.jpg
Wish the picture had been closer to the same as the original - this doesn't really show us much. For all I know it's another part of the house. It does look nice though.
ChrisGal, here's a link to a more similar angle:
http://ourhumbleabowed.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/img_9138.jpg
Wow! It's especially impressive with the photo from farther back. Really beautiful and much brighter.
Wow! It's especially impressive with the photo from farther back. Really beautiful and much brighter.
Very nice! Our first house was a ranch that we remodeled ourselves from top to bottom too. It was 70's groovy with popcorn ceilings and textured walls....we lucked out with no shag carpets though. I'd love to see how you arranged the furniture in this room. We are currently looking at homes and lots of them have rooms shaped similar to this.
http://janyclaire.blogspot.com/
You could easily click on the link to her blog and view several other photos for a better perspective.
It's really lovely! And the larger photo you mentioned is just beautiful!
wow that looks so much better, and brighter. Good job!
Amazing!
thanks for the wide-angle shot... even more impressive! lovely, really.
Uh... in this case, even these two particular photos aren't bad for comparison purposes. Just crop out the irrelevant parts in the "before" shot, it's seriously not that hard. >.>
Great job! :D
Beautiful, you SHOULD be proud!
(I don't understand commenters who can't see that the niche where the old unit sat is the niche where the new one is built in -- look at the sides of the photo, guys -- the corners are still the same, just painted. Easy to see even without checking the blog.)
Wow! Very nice.
OMG this looks SO good... great job Amanda & Ben!
WOW - It looks awesome!
Looks much better - but I prefer to have my tv lower then that.
Fabulous
I like the built-in.
It is hard to evaluate whether it is good for TV viewing without seeing all the seating in the room from which one might watch TV.
I do know that the height of the old TV was better for seated viewing - that's why the space for the TV in the old entertainment unit was at the height it was - it is better ergonomically, you don't stress your neck by having to look up to the TV. I'll never understand why people put TV's at 30" table height. If the TV is just on and watched mostly when standing doing other things, or walking by, then this height is fine.
Also, I like the white built-in. But I the built-in might look even better if the wall below the chair rail was painted a different color, leaving the top and bottom molding white. The white part of the wall looks bare. I'd think about adding some molding strips to that part - to mimic panels - it I was going to keep it white. Just food for thought.
This definitely is an improvement.
what a wonderful transformation !