Hord Home Renovation: Before & After Major Living Room Reveal

The living room is one of my favorite rooms! I was so pumped about designing this space and wanted it to feel comfortable with natural tones. 

I’d first like to give a shout out to our contractor @stromhome for making everything a reality, @westelm for partnering with us on this project and @husbandofhorderly for dealing with me throughout this renovation, haha!

Now let’s get into the details of this room! You can see the initial reno plan and demo video here!

Ceiling

When we first looked at our home, I mentioned raising the ceiling to Fillip and he quickly shot it down. Once my dad came to see the house and said the exact same thing that I did, Fillip was on board – go figure! So, that started our journey of exploring if it was possible to pitch the ceiling or not. It was a no brainer when we found out that it was possible! It was an added expense but well worth it! 

It’s obvious that the ceiling made the biggest difference in this room, however, we also removed the wall between the kitchen and the living room which really opened up the space. Strom Home wrapped the beams with reclaimed wood and we ended up going with a simple poly finish.

Fireplace

You may remember the debate I was having on Instagram about whether to add brick to the right side of the fireplace or removing brick on the left side – I’m SO glad we ended up removing it on the left. We of course had to then add brick to the top of the fireplace once we raised the ceiling and painted all the brick white. You can see more from the beginning of our design ideas on our Instagram highlights here!

We added a mantle using the same poly finish as the beams and ended up going with the larger size television (Fillip and I were going back and forth about two sizes). I was nervous about getting too big of a TV here but it honestly would have looked weird if we went any smaller – and thank you for those who voted on Instagram and helped us make this decision! 

We painted the inside of the fireplace black which I feel is the only decision I made that went wrong (if you have any suggestions on how to revert black painted brick to something else please comment below) and we continued to use the andirons that came with the house.

Bookshelves

To be completely honest, we kind of fell in love with our old living room. It was so mid-century and felt very warm and cozy – but it obviously needed a big update! I’ve always dreamt of symmetrical custom built-ins. I knew I wanted some exposed shelves here but definitely wanted some storage cabinets below. In the left cabinet, I am storing some extra decor items and in the right cabinet, we are hiding our electrical boxes (and it’s where I plug my laptop in at night). Fun fact: our Google Home is hiding in the round basket!

We have arches throughout our house, including the windows of our workout room, and an archway over our sidewalk in the back of the house. We loved these arches so much when we looked at the house and felt like it gave the house so much character and charm. I knew for sure I wanted to bring these arches into the house as well so we ended up making the walkway from the office into the kitchen an archway, the bookcases, and even an arching lamp! @stromhome and his stellar woodworking team killed it on creating my exact vision! 

Bay Window

Under our bay window seat is a radiator. There wasn’t anything we didn’t like about the bay window area – we just knew we wanted to make it look new! 

Once again @stromhome and his woodworking team redid this area and continued to keep the hidden built-in cabinets on the side which is where we store all of our games. I knew I wanted to incorporate canning in our house somewhere and the radiator covers felt like the best opportunity. I love the way they turned out and we have another radiator under the window behind the couch that we did the same thing.

We also have a custom seat pillow coming for here but it won’t be arriving until next year. 

 West Elm Furniture

We are obsessed with all the West Elm furniture options we chose for the living room! I knew I wanted a cognac-colored leather chair in the corner along with the biggest chaise sectional that we could fit in the room. Fillip spends his morning in the chair reading and journaling and we spend every night in the living room hanging out and/or watching TV. The coffee table we ended up going with connects with the natural-toned wood beams and mantel.

We are using a lot of gold hardware in our kitchen, so I wanted to take caution on gold in the living room and use bronze hardware where we could. I incorporated this with our four pendants, our arching floor lamp and the knobs to our cabinets.

We did, however use these brass art sconce lights on the bookshelves, which gives the room a great ambiance at night. We also used some brass decor items on the shelves like these to tie into the kitchen and continued to stick with black, white and neutral colors in the rest of our decor.

Overall, the experience was phenomenal with our partners and it really does feel like we are living in a magazine! 

My overall tip for living rooms is making it comfy, airy and functional. We keep the space clear of any clutter and have just our favorites displayed on the bookshelves and essentials on the coffee table. Everything else has a home. 

The technology is hidden in the cabinets and board games in the secret cupboards, keeping the entire space clean and organized! It’s so refreshing to come home and kick on a movie with our sconces on and a candle lit. 

If you have any questions about our project or the living room, please feel free to comment or message us on Instagram!

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