I have always dreaded being in the dark family room of the midcentry house! It's a sunken family room, originally with wood paneling (see below for a really old shot of it!). Though it had a large sliding door with eastern exposure AND a window with southern exposure it always seemed dark and depressing to me (others have characterized it as cozy, but that's not at all how I have ever experienced it). I think the problems had to do with the walls (even when painted white) and an exceptionally dark and dingy fireplace whose gray-brown reclaimed bricks span the entire 14' length of the wall.
I will be ADDING to this post as more of the room comes together, but for now, I managed to do a fairly substantial upgrade for under $200.
Basically, this entire room needed a lot of brightening up!
Here are a few BEFORE|S...first up, while the walls were white and it had new windows, my mother made some poor decisions about window coverings (yes, she was serious about that!), floor coverings, furniture, etc. It basically looks like value village threw up:
This is an in-progress photo of the fireplace wall (with terrible lighting), I had added some white to the top of the mantle, and was toying with feature-wall wallpaper. I think this gives a good idea of how dark and depressing the room was.
This photo shows the contrast of the original (dark brick) and paint in daylight. Note that the "mantle" is just reclaimed bricks that look like teeth!
I used my leftover Valspar Chalky Finish paint tined in Swiss Coffee (this is the paint I've used for many different projects, acquired on clearance for $5 a can). I wanted some colour variation in the bricks, so that they looked lighter without looking "painted". This paint did a great job - I thought I'd have to dilute and hand tint it (as I did on my Toronto fireplace makeover) but because these bricks were so colour-saturated, the full-strength paint worked fine. I considered hand-tinting a darker colour for the mortar, but in the end I felt it didn't need that. The end result is a gray-off-white with a lot of variation from brick to brick.
Once the bricks were painted, I had to consider all the other elements. You can see that the original paint (which is Benjamin Moore Ultra White CC-10) looks dingy yellow. Ultra White is a very clean white - but the light that comes in from the sliding doors gives everything a yellow hue.
I painted test sections of at least half a dozen whites, and the only shade that looked "clean" in this lighting was Benjamin Moore White Dove OC-17 (a big surprise, because I'd had such luck with Benjamin Moore Paper White OC-55 in my last house to combat dingy light).
Once the fireplace was painted, I started to immensely dislike the brick mantle. I looked at countless photos to see how people with similar (odd) midcentury fireplace (ie, 14' long!) addressed the problem. I thought probably a polished white mantle would be best.
In the mean time, I'd brought a white Ikea Mosslanda picture shelf to the house that was leftover from the last house because I'd missed the return deadline. One day when I was looking at the brick mantle, I wondered if the Mosslanda shelf wasn't the same size - and lo and behold it was!
By flipping the Mosslanda upside-down and backwards, I had a perfectly-sized casing that covered the bricks! I calculated that I'd need 2 and a half more large Mosslanda shelves (at $15 each) to cover the length. I also wanted a board on top of that with a ledge to give it a finished look. I got a pine board the precise width from the lumber yard and had them cut it to the exact length (14') - totalling $60.
I talked to several contractors, read contractor forums, and watched videos for the best way to assemble the mantle. Initially, I expected to have to drill into the brick and screw the pieces in, but it turns out that the newer construction adhesives are made for this type of thing, and have the ability to expand and contract if materials (like wood) react to humidity. I went with LePage LP adhesive.
A final consideration was how to address the variance in the bricks along the top of the manel - some were higher others lower. I glued down small wood shims (triple-checking with a level) to make sure that the mantel would sit totally level.
I pre-painted the pine board (not the Mosslanda shelves, because they were already white), then affixed the shelves followed the pine board with the construction adhesive. I continued to check it with a level as I did this. I didn't place anything on the mantel for 48 hours to let the adhesive cure.
Once it was cured, I used Dap white paintable caulk to fill in the gaps on the back and sides and seams where the Mosslanda shelves came together (which were barely visible even before caulking). Once that was dry, everything including the Mosslanda base received a couple of coats of semi-gloss trim paint. This protects the caulking, and the mantel looked shiny and fresh.
The walls got a full coat of Benjamin Moore White Dove OC-17 in a matte finish, the ceiling with proper white ceiling paint, and Room Mates Light Gray Modern Geometric peel and stick wallpaper for a feature wall above the fireplace. It's a bold choice, and in the photo looks a little busier than it does in real life. I used this in several places in my previous house and never tired of the pattern and colour, and I quite love it here as well. It's an amazing product - super thick and I used it over horrible walls (and even over wood paneling!). It hides a lot of sins, doesn't come off (2 years and counting in my last house) and is very easy to apply because it's so thick. I find this particular pattern easy to match.
I styled the fireplace with a couple of plants, and a big painting that never had the right home - it's a mixed media piece by Saskatchewan artist
Otto Rogers that my father loved. The scale and colours are pretty good for this room. And yes, the H is a little tribute to the late, great Humphrey that had been on the Toronto mantel for many years.
For the rest of the room, I reproduced a bunch of old family photos and put them into Ikea Ribba frames - right before I took on this project, Ikea was discontinuing Ribba so I was able to get the 16x20 frames for $2.50! The larger ones were about $8.00. I wanted texture but no real colour (because it's a small room, it would look very cluttered any other way). I'm also working on replacing tired window coverings with tidy zebra shades. This sectional is Chandler's favourite lounging area, from that spot he can see out of the big window and watch television (which he enjoys). And he loves to drag all his toys onto this sectional to keep him company!
This is the corner of the mantel, where I added some eucalyptus and found a home for a very neat hand-painted vase a friend brought from Cuba.
The rest of the room will have to wait for photos until the excess (dark) furniture is out of the house to the laneway! At least the top third of the room looks alright.