modern retro living room
i'm alia and this is jamie. we have been dating for a year and a month? and i just moved to simsbury, connecticut a month ago. a month ago? two months ago? three months ago. so i wrapped up my whole studio apartment in new york had it moved up here and coming from
my 300 square foot apartment in new york it's interesting to see also the shift in lifestyle being here. jamie has two teenage sons who are the coolest kids in the world, jack and james. they're 14 and 17. alia's in charge now so alia does all the work around the house now so that's good and bad depends on what your style is though.
i'm moving into their territory, their house and for me to come in and change it could be, you know, really disrupted so when they're really open to the ideas and they're excited about them it makes me feel really welcome into their group. the living room is not my favorite room in the house well.. it's... just clarifying.
our living room is the land of misfit furniture. it's where be put all furniture that we either don't like anymore never liked, or don't have a place to put it- we shove it all in that room in oddly looking configurations. the boys actually use it all the time. they bring in their little putting mats and and practice putting in there.
the bigger surprise is the fact that i'm actually doing a putting green room. he's been talking about this putting green room for probably since i met him i really want to do this as something really special for all of them. it will be really a great place for the whole family to hang out. as you can see, this is the living room.
actually we've just broken ground. it's a little bit of a construction site right now. here's what i'm imagining, more of a comfortable living room space that has a little bit of a formal air to it. as long as we can make it usable. i just don't want to have another room that kind of looks fancy that nobody uses.
sometimes the things that we clash on are much more traditional. i mean i definitely bring more of that modern. very modern. my dad's style is a little bit more old school and alia's is more soho loft vibe. okay, you're going to have to go with me on this. high gloss black
all of the molding high gloss black and then the fire place, we would spray this whole wall high gloss black. that's crazy. black fixture. black chandelier with brass. i know we painted the ceiling black in the dining room but its matte black. and everybody that walks in and looks
at our dining room ceiling is like "um...uhh.. that's.. interesting..." when you see it all together with furniture and other elements in the room, we'll have pops of color it's not going to feel as heavy as you're imagining. so are you on board with the sofas, the mirror, the chandelier high gloss black
and i'll stain the floors darker. i'm gonna bring in some help, shockingly i feel like, i totally trust your vision i really do i'm a little nervous about alia taking the reigns of the entire design of the room. you're gonna be involved in it. but i'm gonna be away.
so jaimie is gone for the next two days and he think's he is coming back to a modern living room but turning the living room into a cool putting green is going to be my surprise. i'm going to wallpaper the room, put in turf over the hardwood floors and i have a cool idea of how to make an entire wall into custom build in cabinets.
i'm going to show you some clever design hacks that you can do at home. they're easy, affordable and they're going to take this room to the next level. so i know i told jaimie i'm doing high gloss black paint but this room is about the boys so i'm going to surprise him with a custom blue paint color. we started priming the room already and he sort of fell in love with
this steel-y blue gray color and i know he really wants to go in this direction. doing the room in hues of blue. this is a more sophisticated way of saying, "hey- -i see you. here's your man cave." so when people think of wallpaper, they think old patterns, but i'm actually doing the opposite. i'm using textured wallpaper that matches my blue paint color.
it's an insider tip to make your house feel more cozy and polished. next to the fire place on both sides there's two recess spots which are great places to really highlight a piece that you love. a great piece of art. so my philosophy is always if you can't find it in the market, you can create it.
and i'm going to leverage wallpaper to be my art. and you can find so many wallpapers that have really interesting designs. so i'm going to mount a larger piece of wallpaper on the canvas. i'm actually going to paint just the edges of the canvas and all you see is this really cool pattern, kind of popping out at you.
i don't want to see any white. i want the edges to really blend into the same color as the wall. so now, just like you're wallpapering a wall you're going to use wall paper paste and affix it onto the canvas which works because wallpaper affixes to a wall that has a little bit or a texture to it, and the canvas is already
pre textured, so you don't want a canvas that's too smooth. so you just want to do a very very thin layer. because the canvas has a little bit of a texture sometimes there're those hard to get spots but i see you. give a little air cover. roll it on flat. get all the air bubbles out. make sure its really really nice and flat.
it's gonna look so great in the space i can't wait. i can literally hear jamie in the back of my head asking me, "how the heck are we going to resell this house?" i mean i do have to drill holes in the floor but come on, a putting green in the house is every golfers dream. will it come out to here? so apparently every putting green has two types of turf.
a longer darker green turf called the fringe around the edge which golfers use for chipping and a shorter lighter green turf in the middle used for putting. i thought this putting green would make our living room look like a man cave but i actually think the shape makes it look like a cool piece of art. i guess i didn't full process that we were actually
going to have to cut whole in the hardwood floors to make this happen. the ethan allen guys just arrived. i planned on having all my deliveries done by yesterday. jamie actually gets home tonight. i was planning on spending today just rearranging furniture but best laid plans never happen and i think it's still gonna be great.
so the goal is to fit as many cabinets as you can against the wall. pick a cabinet you love and measure its dimensions to see how many can fit in the space. in order to make these cabinets look like built-ins we need panels that go all the way around from floor to ceiling. the trick here
is to make sure the wood is painted the same color as the cabinets. then finish by filling in the gap across the top with a crown molding. this room makes multiple cabinets feel like one impactful piece. color is always one of the most impactful things that you can use in design. i styled the cabinets in a color gradient
from blues all the way to greens. so the first thing you're going to do is cut a piece of cloth the size of the book spine. it leaves you with just a block of fabric. spray mount is your best friend in this project. just a light dusting on the top and just lightly tap it down. and now we're gonna glue the sides.
again, slightly spray and just and just get in that groove if you can 'cause it's whats going to make it look real. so then we're gonna open the book. and you're just going to snip at the spines. where we're gonna wrap the book in. we're gonna use gorilla glue to glue the insides so it really holds. a little bit on the top here
and really give it a good push down so that it stays. once you have multiple of these, they're really cool stacked up this way in a shelf, centered in the middle of a shelf. i mean look how cool this looks. i had imagined this color wall and it's all coming to life. but this if over five hundred books
and i'm just, i'm working as fast as i can because i really want it to be perfect. it's really cool when the ideas that have been happening in your head for so long, you start to see a little progress. but i still have a lot of work to do so wish me luck. so as we say goodbye to this collection of misfit furniture, we're reviving the space
with a mix of modern and vintage pieces. two french style antique mirrors leaning up against the wall. another french style gold mirror over the fire place. new lighting fixtures that have a really modern vibe. a cool velvet ottoman. two ivory swivel chairs.
and a few personal touches that i think jamie's really gonna love. so tv one and tv two that's a guy sized tv right there. the putting green is down, the furniture's in, the lights are on, and the tv's are mounted.
i'm just finishing final touches. i want everything to be perfect for the boys. i am so excited for them to see this room. surprise hey babe, oh my god! surprise. are you kidding me? it's a putting green. check this out.
babe oh my god what did you do? welcome to your traditional living room. what did you do? did you see the paint color? i can't believe this. oh you left my paint color! no i actually had a custom paint color made and i got to name it.
no you didn't. what'd you name it? prime time jamie. i like that. prime time jamie! there you go! oh my god. found it in the basement and it fits into my color story.
but i wanted it to have representation here and instead of hanging a jersey i thought it would be cooler to do some of your old stuff and take inspiration from the colors in all the books. this is perfect, thank you. i think this is the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me. alright, two hits.
alright. two hits. alright, there you go. good job, alia. oh my god, babe, you got two! i'm sure i'm gonna regret that later. double the sports! i'm gonna regret that when the draft comes on. of course.