Unpacking: The Family Room

And we are on to another room in our house. It never seems to end does it? The family room is one of my favorites in the house (oh, shoot, they're all my favorites). The large fireplace and mantel gives it a classic and homey feel that I really liked when we first looked at the house. The other thing I really liked, which is probably more about the house itself, is that it is very open. Several houses we looked at similar to this layout had the family room down on a level by itself but there was a wall closing it off from all the rest of the house. With this house, it is very open, so from the family room you can still see into the kitchen and up to the top floor where the bedrooms are. The room itself is nice and big and provides plenty of space for entertaining (even though we really do so little of that), but will be great for family time and we can all be in the same space at the same time without being underfoot with each other.

When we moved in, we knew what we wanted to put in the room and we even knew what we wanted to add to the room....new furniture. But the new furniture would have to wait.

For awhile the room was a mess. There was a lot of open space and I had no idea what I wanted done with the mantel (although I actually still don't really know what I want to do with the mantel yet - but I'll get there).

After finding out we were done paying rent on our apartment (bless those people who moved in and saved us a lot of money), we decided we wanted to go out and buy a new living room set. We shopped a little online so we had an idea of what we were looking for, including an ottoman instead of a coffee table before we set out for Nebraska Furniture Mart.

After spending a morning searching the store, we narrowed down our choices then finally decided on our living room set. We set up the delivery date but before we could get it delivered we had to move the current couch from the family room and into the sitting room (which until that point didn't have anywhere to sit). Of course I couldn't help, but superman (aka the hubs) moved the couch by himself up the stairs and into the room and our family room was ready and waiting.

Then one Saturday morning while I was away at a breastfeeding class, Rob waited for the furniture delivery, so by the time I came home, our new furniture was in place and looking wonderful!

Much improvement. Plus now there's actually room for more people to sit then just two, which leaves everyone else to sit on the floor. We bought a couch and love seat, plus a large ottoman (which has four built in drawers for any storing needs). I'm extremely happy with our purchase of the ottoman instead of a coffee table because we will have a little one running around before long and the family room is the room we will be in the most. With a coffee table we will have edges, but with the ottoman there is no hard edges so there is less risk of getting hurt with it.

Like I mentioned before, I'm still a little clueless about what to do with the mantel. There is a clock we plan to get for the fireplace and during the holidays it makes it easy to decorate, but during those non-holiday times, I'm a little lost. I'm always on the search for ideas online, and one day I'll figure it out. But for now, I'll just stick with my current Halloween themed mantel. Other than the mantel, I love the the room. I love the new furniture. If only I could figure out what to do with that dang mantel!