Oddly Shaped Living ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT _ Design Time

I know you're gonna say there's too much stuff .

Hey , everybody , it's design time .

How are we feeling about this shirt ?

I don't know .

It was from the what ?

$100 buys you at Forever ?

21 .

And that was a long time ago and I haven't even looked at it since .

So I thought , why not wear it actually , why ?

So a couple of weeks ago we looked at a kitchen , a room in somebody's house that we had pictures or video of and I kind of just went through what I would do to improve it .

Now , mind you , the person that sent in those pictures actually asked for help .

I didn't just say this is what's wrong with your kitchen .

Well , as I mentioned in that video , it's going to be a series .

I just am not positive about what I want to call it and I want to call it something anyway .

I think I'm so clever sometimes and I thought of room for improvement because it's one room in the house or room to improve .

Well , I looked that up on youtube and it's actually a show from Ireland called Room to Improve .

So for quite some time .

I was against that , but I'm for it now and I'm thinking a room to improve .

Let me know what you guys think of that .

A room to improve .

Anyway , we're going to do the second video in that series and it is a living room and this is sent in by Catherine .

I have yet to actually ask her what city she lives in , but I will find that out before posting this video .

I feel so smart with this shirt on like I'm at work with my glasses .

So like I said , this is a video , it is filmed with the camera vertically .

If you guys send stuff in , try to take video horizontally .

Hi Lou , I need some help with my living room .

So this is my living room TV .

There's a blue sofas , it's like a lounge dining room in one that's my dining table there .

It's like a piano and that goes outside .

Um Basically , it's a strange shaped room that's the kitchen through there .

And the number of times I've had it in different different ways just trying to get it right .

Um I feel like this one is quite good because it's cozy around the TV .

And I know we've got a lot of seating but we need this much seating .

Um The only thing is I think it looks really cluttered , but also that's the wood burner behind there , which is fine in summer .

We don't need it but obviously I'm gonna need to get that out again .

Um , in winter .

Um , I know you're gonna say there's too much stuff .

Mhm .

I do need to have a bit of a tidy up and also outside .

Obviously we're just in the process of cutting up some wood there for winter .

Um , I'd really like to knock through this wool into the kitchen but , uh , I haven't got the cash for that at the minute .

Um Yeah , I'd love to know what you think .

If you can think of some better way of arranging all this seating .

That'd be brilliant .

Thank you .

All right .

So we are gonna start with the main part of this living room , which she admits has too much stuff in it , but really likes the amount of seating because she needs it .

That means she has lots of friends .

My living room has one chair .

So to improve this living room , I would start by taking down those lines completely and putting up a rod and some really cozy curtains , maybe something patterned or a light color to brighten up the living room , which looks I wouldn't say dark , but with allowing some of that light from outside to come in , it would surely improve it .

Now , when I give advice about these rooms and what to do in order to improve it , I am not looking for you guys to spend a whole lot of money .

I just want to help out with what you have and maybe add or take out a few things .

So actually going back to toward the end of the video , she shows where her window is in relation to another sliding window and her sofa is about this far from those sliders , I would push that couch back a little bit .

So you have more room in the middle where the coffee table is and that's what we're gonna talk about .

Next , the coffee table , which looks to be , be an ottoman .

And I actually think I have that Ottoman as part of a couch from IKEA that I use to stage a really modern home .

Now , I would take that Ottoman out and get a wooden or glass coffee table which would sit on top of a very big light colored maybe cream area rug .

The one that's down there now is dark and too small and a larger , lighter colored one would certainly make the space look bigger .

Now , speaking of bigger , those two side units with the cubbies , I would pull out completely .

Now , that might seem unfortunate due to the fact that there are tons of things .

There are wicker baskets plants , there's a unicorn and a lot of other stuff that can actually be hidden and open up that living room to be and look more spacious .

Instead , I might put one more custom unit on one side of the television , which we'll get to in just a second and make it more of an enclosed unit where a lot of these items can be not necessarily hidden but put away on the other side of the television , I would say nothing but a giant plant .

It's amazing what plants can do for a room .

All right , let's address the TV .

Catherine shows me later in the video that behind that television is actually a fireplace .

That is something that I would not cover up .

Although a television and a fireplace are the same kind of focal point in a room .

A fireplace is much cozier .

It's a great aspect of the home .

That's part of the home .

So I would take that TV away and either raise it up above an actual fireplace or put it somewhere else in the room , easy for me to say .

Right .

All right , I am going to show you the virtual picture that I came up with or this living room looking at it toward the television , which I now have as a fireplace .

As you can see , there's drapes on the window , there's a big light colored rug on the floor with a wooden coffee table .

And we have taken out those cubby units and replaced it with a cabinet on the left and a large plant on the right .

And there is the choice of a piece of art or a television above the fireplace .

Those are simple ideas .

I don't know how difficult they'll be to execute , but I think it would make a huge difference in that room moving on .

You know , Katherine's main point with this room is that it is an odd shape , which I must agree with , but I don't think it's a problem here .

We have the wall with a cut out towards the kitchen , which I think is super fun .

I would love to pass plates through there during dinner time .

Catherine mentions how she wants to take that entire wall down , which I think is a great idea .

But if we were to work with the hole in the wall , I think we can do it .

So what I've done here in this virtual picture and again , I promise to get better at this , the space is going to look bigger because pictures are supposed to look like what real estate agents would take and they have a wide angle lens and everything looks bigger .

Anyway , the hole in the wall .

Yes , it looks like you're looking to outside .

But what I've done here is actually , if it can be done , make the cut out bigger and put glass doors coming out .

So it feels like there's more of a flow into the kitchen and I thought it would be really nice to put some lighting in there .

And I've placed them on either side of those glass doors , a piece of art to the right and a curio or buffet on the left , the furniture that I threw in there is very similar to what's in there now ?

I just lightened it up a little bit and made the bench wicker instead of cloth .

I don't know .

I might have taken off a few of those pieces of the collage of pictures .

Is that a heater ?

A radiator ?

If so ?

That's pretty cool .

Oh , they're not sliding doors .

They're french doors .

Those French doors look to lead to a really beautiful outside space .

It just needs to be cleaned up a bit , maybe throw a rug out there and a little conversation set and bam beautiful backyard .

I think this space is very cozy and charming .

It just seems to have a lot of stuff .

We all have a lot of stuff , but it doesn't mean that everyone needs to see it .

I'm a big fan of furniture that you can store stuff in that is out of sight rather than an open shelving type situation .

It just makes everything appear tight and you don't have to get rid of your stuff .

All right , I think that that is it .

We actually tackled two of the main areas in this living room .

Let me know what you guys think , what would you guys have done or would do in order to improve Catherine's living room .

Let us know in the comments down below .

You can also let me know if you thought anything that I said sucked .

Just kidding .

If you think it was not right .

So , before I sign off , I want to remind you guys if you have a room in your home that needs improvement and you'd like a little bit of help .

All the information is down in the description box on how to send me pictures or a video .

I'll definitely take a look at it and see what I can do .

So that's it for the oddly shaped living room that was a room to improve .

I hope you guys enjoyed it .

If you did , please make sure to give it a thumbs up and don't forget to subscribe .

I'll see you guys next time on design time .

Bye .