Kristen has been a long time GS reader and blogs over at Whole Hearted Mommy. Her family is adorable.  Those cheeks on her kiddoes…I could kiss them all day.  Kristen, how do you get anything done?

She let me do a before and after photoshop makeover of her sunroom. Her house was made in 1927 and has charming arched doorways and crown molding everywhere.

They have been using it as a family TV room because they love hanging out in there with all the lovely windows.

There is also a small desk that her husband uses occasionally, but his main workspace for working from home is upstairs.

They are homeschooling in their kitchen right now and have a nice setup with a vintage cupboard to store their supplies.

As a former homeschool mom, I know the struggle with schooling at the dining room table.  It was hard for us to get it cleared off for meal time and always seemed to be in use.  It works if there’s no other option, but I could see a gorgeous second option for Kristen.

It would require moving the TV to another room and combining her seating so the whole family could be together in one space.  It would also mean doubling the natural light in that new room without actually knocking holes in the walls (I’ll show you how in another post.)  She also asked me to keep the style with the age period of the home, and gave me this color scheme to use.

I started by emptying the room of all it’s furnishings so I could think outside the box.  Then hung butter colored checked drapes high and wide.  Her ceilings are 8’6″ tall and I wanted to maximize the feeling of height and light.  She has those adorable scalloped shades for nighttime privacy, so won’t ever need to close her drapes unless there’s a sun glare in someone’s eye during school.

I also painted the black stripe between the windows to match the trim to allow the eye to go on through to the outside.  I left the black accent around the top of the crown molding to draw the eye up, and used a deep black curtain rod (a $2 conduit pipe spray painted black) to add to the height.  Curtain rods are like the eyebrows of the room.  If they blend in too much, something won’t feel right.

Kristen had a second matching bookcase in their living room.  I planned for her to move one to each side of the large arched opening where the desk and TV are right now.  That left the wall to the left open for a huge chalkboard.  1927 School rooms need a chalkboard. Am I right?

With all the windows and the bookcases, I couldn’t see how to fit in her cupboard, and  she needs space for their supplies in this room, plus space for toys that she’s currently keeping in what will be their music room.  (If she has to have the cupboard it could go where the chalkboard is now….she’d have to choose between the two.)

I suggested white trofast bench window seats with flour sack reprint cushions.  Every child can have their own bin with plenty of extra bins for teacher books and toys. The small bins are only $3 each and work perfectly with chalkboard tape for labeling. Their nearest ikea is 3 hours away……but it’s totally worth the trip. I brought in the  black rocker from it’s old spot next to their fireplace so she could rock a toddler with a story book while supervising older kids working independently.

The X farmhouse table is a nice rich brown to warm up the white and gray cool tones of the space. Plans for this table are free from ana-white.com.  The site says it only costs $65 in wood….I’m seriously thinking about building it for my own home. I took the inspiration for the trough style school supply caddy from Joanna Gaines.  I chose benches because they push in easy to get out of the way, but they also are short to allow an unobstructed view outside the gorgeous windows.

If Kristen wanted a high back seat to use at the table with her kids, upholstered captain chairs would work at the ends of the table.

Kristen already owns this table, so it’s another cute option for her. I love the shapely legs.

If she wanted to warm up the room and still use the white table she could brush some green on the legs to tie into the color scheme of the adjoining room.

A quick view with the before and after close together.

What do you think?

P.S.   I think this one is my favorite with the green legs and whitewashed utensil trough.  You’ll see why tomorrow when I show you the living room.