Modern farmhouse living room decor ideas (that is also kid friendly)

Modern farmhouse living room decor ideas that is also kid friendly. How to decorate your family room so it’s stylish and family friendly.

 

I decided after two years of living in this house and tweaking this room 56,457 times (mainly the mantel) it was time to call this room done…for now. Oh I am sure I will change out some pillows and rearrange the mantel another 102 times but for now, I am content with this room.

 

This room gets a beating on a daily basis, it’s the room that has the most toys thrown around it, it’s the room that has movie nights with popcorn and the room that the dog loves the most.

 

It’s also the room that is half the size of the family room in our old house. I’ll be honest,  before we moved into this house I was worried that we wouldn’t be able to fit two couches in here.  I was idiotically upset about having built in bookshelves in this room because I thought they were taking up prime real estate in this smaller scaled room.

 

This room also goes to show you that you don’t need to do anything crazy to completely makeover a room. I didn’t knock any walls down, or install any wood trim on the walls or add any wallpaper (yet). I simply painted and added in some decor and texture to the room. That’s it. Decorating never has to be difficult. Something so simple as painting can make a world of difference.

 

To some, you might prefer the before picture and to some you might before my after picture. At the end of the day, it all matters what you love in your home. I’m just going to give you some easy tips for decorating and you can take it from there.

I’ll show you how I got from here:

To here:

 

 

Steps to take when designing a living room from scratch

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I’ve touched on this before in my Decorating 101 post but I’ll go ahead and give you the living room version cliff notes.  I didn’t follow my own advice mainly because when we moved into this house I used everything from our old house. I’ve since switched out our area rug and a chair, but we’ll talk about that later.

 

I also highly recommend that you create a mood board before you do anything. I never did this before and I can kick myself for not. It is so helpful. You can see how I make my mood boards here.

 

Step 1: Choose your rug or large piece of art.

I usually start with a rug. Rugs are so hard to find to begin with but add in some extra obstacles of having to pick a rug to coordinate with other items in your room and you are up a creek without a paddle….or something like that. I experienced this recently when I was purchasing our new recently. I was somewhat limited but fortunately the rug I was looking for worked well in our space.

 

If you are starting from scratch, start with you rug. You can see more on how to find the perfect rug for your home here

 

 

Step 1 (part 2): Find your artwork

 

Wall decor is also hard to find so if you see something you love, grab it. I have the hardest time finding wall decor so I get creative with my wall decor. You can see what I am talking about here. I used some of these ideas for my mantel too.

The black and white picture of tulips I found here and the blue and pink abstract art I found here. The mirror is from Target. It’s a hard one to find online but here’s the link if you want to check to see if it’s available in your store.

 

This mantel gets changed very often and I’m liking the newest change. I’m sure I will change it again soon. Nothing is safe in this house.

 

Step 2: Paint those walls!

 

Only if you are ready though. No need to rush this part. While painting is the best bang for your buck, it really isn’t if you have to do it twice since you messed up the first time. I stalked my favorite designer and found one of her favorite paint colors and went with it…throughout my whole house. I like to live on the wild side.

 

I went light and neutral which gives me the opportunity to add in pops of color with my decor. If you are having a hard time finding the perfect paint color, get on Pinterest and look for inspiration. Stalk your favorite designers and see what they recommend.  I touched a little bit more about this here and you can see some of my favorite paint colors here.

 

And if you are curious I painted by walls Silver Drop by Behr.

 

Step 3: Add in your furniture

 

Like I said earlier, we moved in and brought our furniture with us so this part was a no brainer for us and the way our room is set up we didn’t have too many choices on how to arrange our furniture.

 

I was worried our two couches wouldn’t fit in our new family room but they did. There are no rules that you need to have just a couch and a love seat.

 

We have two couches. I never understood loveseats. If you can fit two full couches, go for it.  You can also just do a couch and two chairs. Whatever works for your space. I also try to go neutral with my big pieces of furniture and add in color to my room with my accessories.

 

My couches are also the IKEA Ektorp sofa which means I can switch out the slipcover whenever my little heart desires. I love slipcovers for so many reasons…keep reading.

 

Need help arranging your furniture in your space? Check out this article from Better Homes and Garden

 

Step 4: Add in your accessories

 

This is my favorite part of decorating any room.  I definitely graduated from the school of accessorizing. Some people (my husband) might even call it hoarding. But the accessories is what can take a room from blah to beautiful.

 

Pick (or make) your window treatments.

 

I would normally suggest this part when you begin decorating your room but we’ll just talk about it here. We had roller shades in our family room before and while I didn’t mind them, I also didn’t love them so I made my own DIY No Sew Roman Shades

 

Window treatments of any kind will add some depth and possibly some more color to your home. I listed some of my favorite ways to make window treatments in this post here

 

 

Add in some pillows

This is hands down my favorite way to accessorize any room. I have a really bad addiction to pillows. Take a bare couch and throw some cute pillows on it and look at the difference it makes. If you pay close attention to my pictures, you will see that I am constantly moving my pillows around my house.

 

I make sure whatever pillow I buy or make can be used in mostly every room in my house.  I tell all my pillows to never get too comfortable where they are because they will get moved the next day.

 

I’m consider myself a pretty good pillow maker (using glue and tape) and I listed how I make my pillows in this post and since I am a deal seeking ninja I listed my favorite places to find cheap pillows here.

 

Now go buy some pillows…

 

 

Add in pretty things and plants

 

Alot of people forget about this step. This step is the icing on the cake. Just a few pretty things can make a big difference and plants will make a bigger difference.

 

I will not judge you either if you go with faux plants. There are some really great fake plants out there and I’ve been know to have a big black thumb. But if you want to try to dabble with the real deal, I have a blog post about how to not kill plants.  Here’s a hint…get the ones that don’t die so easily.

 

I also am fortunate enough to have built in bookcases in our family room which gives me so much room for accessorizing. I did a whole post on how to how to decorate booskhelves because shelves are hard to decorate…very hard. You would never think it until you try to start decorating them.

 

 

I find alot of my pretty things on Amazon. I love Amazon for so many reasons but that two day shipping is the main reason. I have purchased online from other stores and I now get annoyed that my stuff from them takes longer to get to my home. Amazon has spoiled me.

 

I try to update my Amazon storefront as much as I can. I listed some of my pretty things I have in my home in my storefront for reference.

 

How to make a living room look bigger and brighter and what to do if your living room is small

 

Our previous family room was large…sometimes I felt like it was too big. I had two couches, two chairs, two ottomans and a large coffee table and I bet I could have fit a few horses in there without overcrowding the space.

(You can see more of our previous home here)

When we moved into our current home I was so worried about the our living space being so much smaller.  We surprisingly fit more furniture in our space than I thought we would.

 

Paint your walls a lighter color (sometimes)

As you can tell in the before picture our walls were a dark brown color. Once I painted the walls a lighter color, the room felt twice it’s size.

 

While I do recommend painting your walls a lighter color to make your room feel bigger, I do not recommend this technique if your room does not get natural light.  Your walls will actually look dingy without any natural light.

 

Move furniture from walls

 

This is a tip I haven’t done yet in my current family room only because my kids like to jump on the couch and the couch  usually gets pushed back up against the wall anyways.  Moving your furniture a few inches from your wall can create balance in your room and make it feel larger.

Add mirrors

 

Mirrors are great for making a room feel larger but watch that reflection. Ideally you would like for your mirror to reflect the outside so your room looks larger but I know that is not always possible.  The mirror on my mantel reflects a not so pretty fan. I love the mirror on my mantel so sometimes you just got to do what you got to do, you know.

 

Use larger furniture…but on a smaller scale

This might not make sense, I know. If your room is small adding alot of little furniture will make your room feel cluttered. Adding a larger sofa with a low profile will make your room feel larger.

 

How to make your family room family friendly

 

I have three kids and a dog and like I said our family room gets quite the beating. I am no stranger to Resolve. I also have learned what works for us and how to combine design and durability.

 

Slipcovers are your new best friend

I cannot say enough good things about slipcovers. We have the IKEA Extorp sofa and while I loved the price of the sofa, I loved the fact that I could wash the slipcover whenever I felt like it needed a good washing. I did choose the gray slipcover and one day I do plan on purchasing the white or beige slipcover.  I’m just not feeling that adventurous at the moment.

 

 

Pattern should also be your friend

 

Pattern hides dirt. Pattern is good. I was so worried when we purchased our new rug this past year that it had too much white in it (because a white rug should never be your friend with messy kids and a dog). But I purposely sought out a rug that had enough pattern in it to hide dirt. And so far it is doing just that

 

Previously we had an indoor/outdoor rug in here and for a long time I really thought that was the only kind of rug I could use. Honestly, did I really think I was going to pull that rug outside and hose it down once a kid spilled their juice box on it?!? That’s a big fat nope!

 

Go vintage

 

Thank you Joanna Gaines!  Our coffee table was my parent’s old dining room table. I cut the legs down and repainted it. It gets the biggest beating of everything  in here. It gets colored on, ate on, sat on, jumped off of…you name it.

 

Every scratch or pencil mark just adds to the character of the table. And the fact that it is round with no sharp corners is  an added bonus. It really does need to get a new coat of paint but I really am in no hurry. It’s vintage and I’ll keep telling myself that for as long as I can.

 

 

Be a smart accessorizer

 

Is accessoriezer a word? Not sure but be smart about it. Baskets are my favorite smart accessory. They are pretty and functional and hide all those dang legos you are constantly stepping on.

 

Bring the outdoors in

Just like my outdoor rug, outdoor pillows are always a safe idea with kids. I found a few outdoor Serena and Lily pillows on clearance and added them to my pillow rotation.  Pillows get rotated constantly around here so you will likely never see the same pillow combination on my couch…just a warning.

 

 

The navy and white lumbar is an outdoor pillow I found at Walmart too. Outdoor pillows are more durable and easier to keep clean and these days you can find some cute ones.

 

And there you have it! I always say decorating never has to be hard. Find what you love and you’ll always love the space you live in.

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Modern farmhouse living room ideas that is also kid friendly. How to decorate your family room so it’s stylish and family friendly.

 

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