Plan for Our Basement Family Room

Now that Summer is over, and Fall is creeping up on us, the Mr. is itching to start with getting our basement entertainment area ready.  I guess he envisions that's where we'll curl up for some weekend movie nights in the winter months.  Love it when he plans ahead!

We asked our builder to finish the basement as our family room, so that we can banish our TV downstairs.  It was the best decision we've made for this house, allowing us to live in peace upstairs without TV distractions, and actually be more productive with our after-dinner activities.

So back to our basement... When the Mr. has the itch to get the basement done, I need to help scratch it by getting the design nailed down.  If you're following me on Instagram, and has seen my IG stories, then you would know that he has already painted the walls in Benjamin Moore's Intense White!

I'm so glad I've recently discovered iHomeRegistry.com as my design helper!  It is an online 3D home designing software.  I've never been professionally trained to use the CAD softwares for interior design, and yet I find iHomeRegistry very easy to navigate.  Best thing was, I can custom size everything, down to each piece of furniture!

Armed with my "drawings", I held a design meeting with the Mr.  (The following drawings were all prepared with iHomeRegistry.)

We wanted to maximize the TV viewing distance in the entertainment area, so naturally, this layout below made the most sense, with the couch and TV setup lengthwise across the space:

This is my inspiration of the wrap-around media unit:

via Sophie Paterson

One of my pet peeves in decorating is working around the TV unit. However, with this being our entertainment room, I have no choice but to comply with it. Another challenge with this layout is the ducts and vents on the walls, which we can't block in case we need emergency access to them.  

That means we had to change our whole furniture placement to accommodate for these ducts and vents.  So, we moved things around.  Here's the new furniture placement layout, with the view from the stairs:

As much as I hate coming down and staring straight at the TV, this layout allows us to accommodate for the wall ducts and vents.  Our couch stays on the left wall, and armchairs are now on the right.  Behind the armchairs, the Mr. will build a storage unit, similar to one at our old home office.  I'm still at a loss as to what should be done at the TV wall. 

Here's what reality of this new layout looks like, after the Mr. has painted the walls and moved the furniture pieces around (did I tell you he's a visual person?):

On the right side of the storage unit will be our eating/ crafting/ gaming area:  

For this all-purpose area, I'm planning to pair the IKEA Ingatorp extendible dining table:

IKEA Ingatorp table

... with the 4 chairs that the Mr. reupholstered last year:

On the left side of the couch, we'll create a bar area:

My inspiration of the bar unit with brass and glass shelves is from this pantry at Chicago Restoration Hardware's 3Arts Cafe:

It's the first time I'm using iHomeRegistry to play around with layouts, and it's so much fun and so easy to use, I'm hooked!  It's a great communication tool for the Mr. and I, because I can't draw for the life of me to get my design across to him, but he's a visual person who needs to SEE what's in my head 😆   This has helped me stop pulling at my hair when we sit down to talk design 😂

So to tally up our new furniture pieces, the Mr. will be building 3 units - the media unit, the built-in bookcase, and the bar cabinets.  I requested that the door fronts be of the same style for all 3 units (with varying widths), so that they have a sense of coherence even though they're far apart.  Now the question is, does he build from scratch again (like he did for our DIY closet) or hack an IKEA cabinet (like our first IKEA hacked dressing room)?

Our Belated Dining Room Reveal

I just realized the other day, while I was sharing yet again photos of our dining room on Instagram, that I haven't done a proper reveal of it on the blog.  Did you read about our exciting experience at Restoration Hardware's Chicago flagship gallery?  We love the RH style, and this dining table and chairs from RH define our home's overall style.

We're fortunate to have such a large dining area in a townhouse.  Let me explain how we have designed our dining room to be comparable to our previous larger home's.

The builder has designated this space as a typical townhouse layout.  As you can see below, the space right outside of the kitchen is the dining area, and the living area on its left.

Builder's rendition

Ignoring the builder's planned furniture placements, the builder's living/ dining area is a huge open space!  Knowing the dimensions of the layout, I knew it would be a spacious area to use as our dining room. 

But where should we put the living area now that our dining table has taken up the entire space? See the 2 dining tables in the builder's layout?  One is in the dining area and the other in the breakfast nook (bottom left).  We didn't see the need of a breakfast area in our old house, so naturally I've eliminated this one in the new house as well.  As mentioned previously, we designed it as a seating area/ living room instead.  

This was our dining room in our previous home...

and I was pretty sure the new house's dining area would fit it just right.

This was the furniture layout we planned for in place of the builder's:

Our planned layout

I've posted my dining room inspirations here, and I'm so glad how it turned out!  Although the dining room of our previous home is larger, I love how much brighter the dining area is at this new house.

One of the tricky elements of this dining area is the different sizes of windows.  The set of windows on the left is wider than the patio doors on the right.  Since we're using this as a dining area, we wanted the windows to have a unified look.  

We devised a work-around solution to treat it as one large window wall by installing the taupe swags only on either ends of the wall.  This window treatment makes the room feel larger by unifying the two sets of windows as one.  The set of topiaries and the double chandeliers were placed strategically to enhance this illusion of symmetry.

As you can see, the console table is at the same position as in our previous home.  It made sense to have it on the left side of the dining area instead of the right side, which may then block the traffic at the patio door.

These were the chandeliers that hung above our previous home's kitchen island.  We loved them too much and just had to bring them with us to this new house! 

These chandeliers were another tricky point of this dining area.  During our pre-drywall appointment with the builder, we noticed the two light boxes for this space.  They were in the middle of the builder-planned living area and dining area.  If you check the floor plan above, you would notice the lights would be far apart.  

We requested the placement of the light boxes in this large space to be moved to accommodate for the two chandeliers.  We marked exactly where the boxes should be.  Although the site supervisor emphasized that he couldn't promise us the location would be exactly as marked, they were pretty much where we wanted them to be...  4 ft. apart above the centre of the dining table.

And yes, to know where to mark those light boxes, we had in mind the placement of our dining room furniture in this space.  We had a rough idea of how far the dining table should be away from the window wall, and how much space should be between the dining table and the console table.  That was how we gauged where the light boxes of the chandeliers should be.  

These are what I would call minor but essential details of our planning phase.

And since we don't have a home office, this is where I have my (usually messy) work area as well.  Yup, I use the Mr.'s rock glasses for my fave lemony San Pellegrino.   It makes my water look that much prettier!

This is the breakfast area turned seating area.  Notice there's no TV on our ground floor.  We've always wanted it that way, even at our previous home.  We're not serious TV watchers and I find it a nuance to work furniture placement around a TV.  Instead, we had banished the TV to our basement family room.  It's a calmer home without having to talk to each other over TV sounds.

The walls look bare without any wall treatments.  Eventually the Mr. will get to building the wainscoting and re-painting our main floor.  I'd much rather have our storage issues addressed before we attempt any improvement projects on aesthetics.  You can see the Mr.'s DIY wainscoting at our previous home's dining room here.

I think I've covered most of the design elements of this dining area in our new house.  Well, it's not so new anymore; I can't believe September would be our first year anniversary at this house!  It's time to celebrate!

Oh that reminds me of this important part of our dining room...  our bar cart!

Restoration Hardware Chicago - The Gallery at Three Arts Club

I can't believe it's already been a week since we've returned from our Chicago visit.  Our friends there always make our stay with them lots of fun.  Knowing that we're food lovers, it's almost a sure thing that they would introduce us to yet another delicious venue.  This time around, on the first afternoon of our visit, they brought our family to enjoy a scrumptious snack...  and a feast for the eyes!

I'm talking about the Restoration Hardware's Chicago flagship store - The Gallery at Three Arts Club.  It's a historical building that has been renovated, and of course, outfitted by RH's furniture.

I couldn't contain myself when I saw the Café!  I don't think I was able to close my mouth from the oohs and ahs that were coming out.  I heard it's usually a never-ending lineup into the cafe, so we were very lucky to arrive at tea time and got seated at a table right away! 

This latte was nothing short of perfection! We also ordered a truffle grilled cheese sandwich, which was equally out of this world.

It was late afternoon and this gigantic chandelier lit up.  It brought a fairytale ambiance to the whole courtyard café.

Our visit didn't end there...  be prepared for an overload of images!

The Gallery has five floors, each floor houses a department as such:

Our friends suggested we start our tour of the gallery from the top floor of Outdoor and Garden, and continue down the floors.  It was such a good idea...  if we had gone from bottom to top, it would've been dark (and rainy) outside when we got to the Outdoor part!

Let me take you on a mini tour of the Gallery.  It has too many beautiful rooms and I can't possibly fit them all in one post, so I've picked my favourites to showcase.

Outdoor & Garden

RH read my mind...  rattan furniture, dining area under a curtained gazebo, gray patio stone slabs...  my backyard goals are screaming at me.

Then we went down this beautiful staircase from the outdoor area, lit by these gorgeous large chandeliers, with their light reflected by the gilded mirrors:

Modern Furniture Line

The 4th floor houses RH's relatively new modern line.  I'm not much of a modern gal, but when it's glammed up with tufting and gold accents...  I think I can live with that!

This Porthole bar curio with pipework base looks stunning.  It's a statement piece that can fit any style of space.

How glam is this modern powder room?  That gold chair with fur cushions takes an ordinary-looking vanity up a notch!

Child & Teen

I guess it's no surprise that I was inspired by all things RH when I was brainstorming the playroom for little man.  I love the industrial style and rugged feel of the boys' rooms:

This is such a cool work (and gathering) space for the boys!  Wonder if they'll get any work done just chit chatting away in those furry chairs :-)

And here are the rooms fit for princesses!  It's so much lighter in textures and brighter, a stark contrast to the boys' rooms.

I can see a slumber party going on here!

How dreamy is this bed?  Love the chandelier emerging through the canopy.

This is my favourite room of the girls space.  A daybed, a beautiful beaded chandelier, and even a space to host an Alice in Wonderland tea party!

Plus a mirror vanity table, and...

... a mirror dresser!  All the glamorous touches!!  Lucky girl!

Bed & Bath

I'm not sure how I whizzed through this floor without taking much photos!  But I love this bathroom vanity, with a luxury hotel feel. 

Notice how they showcase the different faucet styles at each sink:

Living & Dining

And here we are back on the first floor.  Every space featured is stunningly gorgeous!!  You get the sense of grandeur that's the essence of Restoration Hardware in each setting.

I love this dining room's intricate fireplace.  Makes me want to have a fireplace in ours too!

Such an intimate setting for a dining room.  My photo doesn't do justice to this beautiful stone top dining table.

Hallways

RH didn't leave any space unturned; even the hallways are beautifully decorated.  Need some inspirations for your long hallways?  Adorn them with mirrors/ artwork, chandeliers, and exquisite sconces.  Here are a couple of my favourites:

Pantry

The Café's pantry is off to the side but it's not just a regular butler pantry.  Those gray cabinets feature a marble countertop, supporting a brass and glass shelving unit.  This is exactly what I dream of for our basement family room's bar area.

It shouldn't be too hard for the Mr. to DIY, ya think? 😁

How many times have you dreamed of being in a room of an RH catalogue?  For a Restoration Hardware fan like the Mr. and I, this visit to the Gallery was a magical experience.  Each floor and each space within is like a live catalogue right in front of you.  And we're ever so grateful for our friends to know us so well, both food- and style-wise, that they brought us there!

Speaking of food...  I'm undergoing vacation detox from our stuff-athon (as in stuffing ourselves with the yummy good food in Chicago!).  Can't wait to go back again!!