Capturing a bold living room design (or really for any room in your home) does not happen without intention and planning. In order to effectively achieve the desired outcome for one homeowner, we decided that mixing design styles in her living room was the perfect way to go. The result, a striking mix of dramatic flair and timeless elegance. Since the classic tale of a makeover never grows old, this living room before and after stirs the heart with equal magic and charm! Let’s jump in!

Living Room Before & After

Quite often, the living room is the first room one enters after coming through the main entrance of a home. This can sometimes result in a sort of “catch-all” kind of feel and become the default function of the space. For this client, their living room was trying to serve multiple purposes and over time, it became a little disjointed. You can see in the before photos below, there were a few key challenges we wanted to address with our design plan: lack of a focal point and cohesive look, inadequate lighting, and a lot of open surfaces (all too eager to serve as clutter catchers).

LIVING ROOM BEFORE

LIVING ROOM AFTER

After assessing what would need to be addressed, we came up with a plan to overcome the challenges and create a cohesive living room design with a blend of gorgeous styles and function that works for the homeowners. Below, you will see how we tackled everything, but first how about this reveal!

#1 Lacking Focal Point – Dressing the main wall in a bold pattern draws your eye immediately to one major focal point. And by adding the dark & matching pieces of furniture adds weight to that end of the room, creating

#2 Poor Lighting – We added central, overhead lighting to the middle of the room. When light is cast from above and supported by table and floor lamps around the room, the illumination factor is amplified and creates balance.

I love this light! The sprawling design creates a major statement while adding so much light around the room. I have linked it up for you below:

#3 Open Surfaces – We chose glass fronted cabinets that could accommodate

Design Mixing That’s Bold

I love that this project serves as a great example of mixing design styles without the need to overdue one style over another. Plus, it truly is representative of working with a client’s personal taste and style while keeping a design cohesive and well planned.

Design Board for this living room

Mixing Styles Makes Good Design

Design Styles Used for this Living Room

Selecting the right balance and mix takes time, practice, and consideration. For this homeowner, we focused on capturing some drama of Art Deco and marrying it with the timeless ease of Mid Century Modern.

Art Deco Details

The bold sunburst motif and repeated geometric pattern mixed with curved lines reflect the flair and drama of art deco styling.

Mid Century Staples

Using clean, simple lines and natural elements such as jute & leather are consistent with the features of MCM design. It keeps everything so timeless.

Mixing Styles – Final Thoughts

Creating a style that is unique to you is part of the interior design process. If you would like some additional inspiration and want to see examples and tips for using different design styles, check out these other blog posts, linked below.

Mid Century Modern Basement Design

Design Trends to try in 2025

Mid Century Living Room Update

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Happy FunCycling Friends,
Sarah ;)

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Hi Friends!!

As you may already know, we bought this old, beautiful home in December of 2018.

Every. single. room needs lots and lots of work. Some call us crazy, some call us brilliant, and to be honest, some days I feel a little bit of both. I adore making this beauty our own, but with a busy, thriving business, coming home to more work feels daunting some days. I can’t tell you how many days I’ve cried to John and said, I just need one room done, just one room. For those of you who have never remodeled a home, the tricky part is that no matter how hard you try, it’s always a complete mess. Dust in the air, wood everywhere, tools everywhere. It hard to have that everywhere and feel like inviting friends over or relaxing and watching a movie. It feels embarrassing to have people over because even though you’re working as hard as you can, it still looks like you’re not. John is very good at setting boundaries on when we won’t work on the house or reading the pulse of the family mood and deciding that it’s time for dinner out and movie. He works so incredibly hard and loves us even harder. I tend to be the one saying, just one more thing and then….

That being said, after 7 months, we have a room done in our house and I’m so excited to have our home be a Tuesday’s Treasures! Yay! I would say that despite the tears and the lack of relaxing this year, I would do it again now that I have one room done. It feels better than I can even explain to have a space to sit with friends that’s comfy and cute. It’s not always about having the best things, but I do believe having a relaxing space that’s inviting – however that looks to you – is so important in a home. Now we do, we do!! One room is done and more will be soon! I can’t wait to share this transformative journey room by beautiful room with all of you. Thanks for following along! I love reading your comments and getting your input! It makes the journey even sweeter.

Here’s the living room before:

Everything that’s going to be beautiful in the end gets really ugly to start. We had to rip out almost all the lath and plaster in this room. Either from water damage in the roof or to install new electric and insulation. There were very few outlets in this room so we wanted to add more and an overhead light switch.

The kitchen in our house has picture rail at the top to hang pictures from so we wanted to keep that look in this room as well.

My design has changed a lot over the years. Even though I loved my last house so much, I’m leaning toward a more midcentury farmhouse look now. I’m not sure if that’s even technically the name of a design style, but I think it best describes the look I’m going for. A little bit of farmhouse charm mix with clean lines and mid-century furniture.

Ready for the afters??

Here’s a list to answer some of the questions I thought you might ask.

Walls: 8″ shiplap painted Benjamin Moore’s Simply White
Joybird Couch in Lucky Turquoise Fabric
Gray Mid Century Love Seat

Next month, I’ll be sharing the before and afters of the tiny little corner bathroom in the living room area. Sign up for our weekly newsletter so you don’t miss out by adding your email in the little box below my picture. 

Happy FunCycling Friends,
Sarah ;)

If you like what you see, please like FunCycled’s Facebook page to keep up to date on the newest finds, vote on colors and give your input on our creativity. We also offer interior design, kitchen cabinet painting, and custom built tables, barn doors, and furniture. We can deliver for customers in upstate NY and also help you ship throughout the US. Send us a note with what you would like using our contact page. Or buy something that we’ve already designed from our online shop.