Welcome Winter & Adding Cozy To My Family Room
Even though it has a beauty all its own, winter is NOT my favorite season of the year! It’s just plain cold, y’all, and all I want to do is snuggle up with a warm, fuzzy blanket and a cup of hot cocoa. Brrrr and brrrr.
During the winter, I add cozy spots all over my house. You just might be a little surprised at how I added coziness to my family room though. I guess that traditionally, you’d normally just add some blankets or throws and pretty much call it done. Well…I did all of that, but I took it a step further. Take a look at my much improved cozy and rustic gallery wall!
If you’re visiting for the first time, let me give you a little background. My husband and I purchased an outdated, mid 90’s home a little over a year ago. We’ve been giving the whole house a remodel – room by room. I’ve shared bits and pieces of several rooms, but so far we’ve completed the remodel on our farmhouse kitchen, breakfast area and laundry room. The family room is pretty much completed too, so I’ll have a full room reveal sometime next week.
On to the deets about my updated gallery wall. In case you don’t remember, this is what it looked like when I first started working in the family room. (Please excuse the badly exposed photo.)
BEFORE
Not awful, but not quite right either. The clock never did look like it was in the right spot and the whole wall was too sparse and empty for me.
I moved the clock to a different location and replaced it with my fiddle leaf fig print that used to reside on the other side of the room. That one change was an immediate improvement, but I didn’t stop there!
Many of the original elements remained, but I added several new things too. One was a diy rustic ladder that I filled with cozy throws and a winter scarf or two. This ladder was very inexpensive and super duper easy to make! You can find the complete step-by-step tutorial HERE.
I made a couple of chunky tassels too, just to add a touch more cozy. Tying them off with jute twine instead of the same yarn used for the tassels gives them just a bit more of a rustic touch.
Another addition to the gallery is an awesome wood shutter that came from a house that was built in the 1800’s. It still has the original hardware on it and you can see that the nails used to build it are handmade. It was in several pieces when I bought it, but some carpenter’s glue took care of that.
I found it at a local architectural salvage place and just look at that patina! A twig wreath hanging from it adds more of that all important texture. Texture = cozy, right?
The last new item that was added to the wall is a “Count Your Blessings” sign. This was another super easy project. First I created the saying on a Word document. I then went to the Block Posters website, to reverse the image and print it across multiple pages. I then used THIS METHOD to get the outline of the words onto a scrap board that I painted with black chalk paint and filled the letters in with some white paint. I gave it a light sanding once it was all dry, which helped to dull down the bright white a bit and contributed to the old and worn look. I could have just hung it from the wall with a hook, but I chose to add a couple of eye-screws and suspend it from jute twine.
There’s one more thing that made a huge difference in making the whole family room more cozy. It’s the addition of a diy sofa table that I placed behind the couch.
An added bonus of the table is that it allowed me to add more lighting to this side of the room, which it needed. The step-by-step tutorial for building a sofa table like this one, can be found HERE. It was another easy-peasy project!
Our family room is a generously sized room, which is nice, but that generous size presents its own set of challenges. The room felt empty and uninviting with the couch all the way against the wall. There was too much space between the front of the coffee table and the other side of the room. Plus, there’s a little bit of an overhang above the couch which makes pushing the couch against the wall even worse. Adding the table behind the couch brought everything closer together and cozied the room up a little.
I didn’t just rely on the improved gallery wall to add coziness to this side of the room though. I added a cute winter vignette to my tall lantern and placed it on the console table beside the couch. And I kept out a mini snow covered evergreen tree from my Christmas stash for some added winter decor.
The new gallery wall has really completed this side of the room and I so enjoy relaxing on the couch (under the blanket, of course) in front of a warm fire.
Winter Fireplace Mantel And Hearth
What’s your favorite season of the year? I say, come on spring!
Hi Suzy. I love the big chunky tassels you made. Do you make them just the same way as making smaller ones, using cardboard rectangles to wrap the yarn around? Also, where did you get that chunky yarn? Love it!
Hi Katy. I apologize for taking so long to get back to you! Yes, I made the tassels by wrapping yarn around a cardboard rectangle. I found the yarn at Michael’s.