A Coastal Transitional Living Room Before + After

Finished Project Photos by Public 311

Today we're continuing our reveal of this newly renovated house along the coast, and going into the details of the living room! To catch up, have a look at the dining room and kitchen reveal here. The previous owners of the home were our clients' grandparents, who called the house home for many, many years. After the passing of the grandparents, our clients decided to say goodbye to their much larger home in Texas and moved into this one in Santa Barbara. We're all pretty sure everything in the house was original, or at least a few decades old, so it was in major need of an update.

Scroll through to see this floor plan completely open up!

The original floor plan was very segmented, with small doorways between different areas of the main space. You can see the main entrance to the original kitchen in the photo above. That large sofa was right in the middle of the circulation hallway connecting the rest of the house, so a new layout was our first priority.

Here's a look from the entry door to the kitchen. And yet another hallway to other parts of the house!

And another view down that same hallway - they definitely needed a bigger space to hang out as a family!

As a reminder from our last post, the clients decided to go with option 1, which included closing the small entry into the kitchen, and combining the living room with the dining space and kitchen. We had to keep the hallways intact, but we wanted furniture placement to allow for easy flow through all of the spaces.

We just love the light that comes in to all three of these spaces now! If you remember that first photo, the only light coming in was entering from the backyard sliding door. Now they have light coming in from both sides, which makes the space feel even bigger still, in addition to the open floor plan!

They didn't really ask us for a built in during the design phase, but we didn't have a lot space given that we needed to keep the hallway walking space open on two sides of the living room. That meant that the back wall where the TV used to sit on top of a media cabinet needed to stay open, so that pushed us to add storage and move the TV to the opposite wall right behind the kitchen. Going with a built-in instead of a freestanding media cabinet felt more intentional, provided great lower storage, and gave us a chance to add fun decor above on alder shelves, finished to match the pantry you see in the background.

Here's the built-in in all its glory! To keep the space a little bit more modern, we added this fun low height chandelier. I wasn't sure they'd go for it, but they loved it! Good thing too - eight foot ceilings and chandeliers don't usually mix well, but this low profile option was perfect. We also didn't want to block the TV, so I think it makes a statement without feeling too intrusive in this space. The large leather chair also can swivel to face the dining area or turn toward the TV to make it as functional a living room as possible!

We also went with a big, comfy blue sectional in a stain-resistant performance fabric that will stand up to the kids. They were understandably very concerned about the kids ruining things. We checked in a week after the install, and they said they have a no food rule in the living room now - so far, so good! They also went with pillows from the MND pillow shop - have a look if you're in need a refresh for your living room too!

We always love a good shelfie! Appropriately scaled decor is key to filling larger shelves like this without looking cluttered.

An upholstered ottoman and coffee table is a great functional choice that can flex between uses very easily! Of course we also made sure to use performance fabric here!

We really loved this space, and these clients have been very happy since we finished the install. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for more reveals for this special project!