After a Reno, This 1976 Living Room Becomes the “Jewel of the House”
When Sandra Westre (@villawestre) and her husband and two daughters were house hunting, they actually wanted to buy a brand-new home. “We couldn’t find any in the area, so we decided to look for a project that we could turn into our dream home,” Sandra says. The project they found was a 1976 home that only had one owner previously and almost felt like a time capsule.
“Furniture, wallpapers and kitchen, it all looked like it did in 1976,” Sandra says. “When we first visited the house, it was almost like entering a museum. It was really well taken care of, though, leaving us with the feeling that the previous owner must have loved his home.”
One detail Sandra and her husband loved about the house? The large south-facing windows. Although the home got a gut reno, there are still two large windows in this same corner, and there are other design nods to the original.
Natural light pours into the new space.
The original home had “many small rooms connected by a narrow and dark corridor,” and Sandra and her husband demoed almost all of the internal walls out. “It was pretty quick and fun … leaving us a white canvas to start with.”
From there, they hired professionals to create an open-concept, one-story space. “The large windows in the corner of the room make the space feel larger and even more open,” Sandra adds.
The construction process wasn’t without its hiccups. “The foundation was way thinner than expected, as well as the insulation of the walls,” Sandra says. “The roof was also constructed in a very simple manner, which left us with some extra cost and time, as well as lower ceilings.” But Sandra and her husband combatted the lower ceilings by adding skylights. Nine of them span from the kitchen to the living room in addition to stylish new pendant lights.
The paint color is a nod to the original wallpaper.
Sandra and her husband picked Jotun’s Humble Yellow paint for the walls and ceilings. It’s “very similar to the original wallpaper, and it gives the room such a relaxing and happy feeling, almost like sunshine all year round,” Sandra says.
She also opted for gold-ish parquet wood floors, giving the room an overall warm feeling.
There’s a DIY tile project in store.
In the renovation, a tile-covered fireplace was added to the corner of the living room, and Sandra’s biggest renovation regret is that they didn’t cover the wall to the left of the fireplace with the same tan ceramic tile. (At the time, her husband didn’t buy in fully, but now he’s convinced, and they plan to do it this summer!)
The coffee table is handmade.
One other DIY project to highlight in the living room is the wooden coffee table. Sandra cut the pieces and made it herself with leftover wood from all the construction. “We have long had a low table with steel pipe stem, which …too small for coffee table, too big for side table,” Sandra says on Instagram, and the wood table acts as an extension of sorts.
Sandra also says on Instagram that this room is a spot for her kids to build forts and play gymnastics and a place for her and her husband to relax with a glass of wine. “The long bench hides sewing machine, wood and tiles waiting for their next project,” she writes. And she tells AT that “the living room is the jewel of the house.”
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