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Design Musings Old Beekman

All the Cozy Feels

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Even though we don’t have an open-concept house, we were intentional during our renovation to give the home a much needed flow. Just ahead of our kitchen and dining room area is our family room. It is set three steps down from the dining room, and it has a set of slider doors that lead to the back patio and all the green of our backyard. In its original purchased condition, the family room was wallpapered, had been stripped from its original steps and adapted with a wheelchair lift, it had wood paneling in some walls (but not others) and it had beautiful, rough wood beams (yet, one was cut to accommodate the lift). It also had a beautiful wall of exposed brick with a massive wood burning fireplace. 

Matt and I immediately envisioned it as the center of our family life, so we had to make significant changes to the floor plan around this area to support that vision. While the original room led to a very small, under-the-steps bathroom (Harry Potty?), a door to the backyard and a set of stairs for an upstairs room, we gave up that whole area for a mudroom which would not only provide access to our garage, but link our garage and home to our backyard access and second floor!

BEFORE

AFTER

To make the vision whole, we centered the doorway into the room with the steps that lead to the dining room thus creating a clean passageway from the garage/mudroom into the house. 

Once construction was done, the clear rustic vibe of this room was giving me all the cozy feels. So the decision was made to lean into the rustic element in this space. We kept all the rustic charm of the brick inlays on the floor, the original wide planked wood flooring (we refinished them!), and the massive fireplace brick wall. We just added touches that made the room work for our family. We worked with an expert carpenter who was able to “harvest” more of the original paneling from our old sunroom (which became our dining room), and seamlessly install it in our family room to complete a full room of paneling. He also helped us finish and ground a beam that had been cut in order to accommodate a wheelchair lift. 

The original steps of the home were re-installed, and we worked on a new, slightly modern railing.

We painted the room a warm putty color that complements all the original woodwork of this room while bringing in some modern sophistication. Like we did in many places of the house, we kept the same furniture from our townhome. Firstly, because it fit like a glove. Secondly, because we were too focused on making the house work for us before we could make it pretty. 

Matt built one more shelf for the built-in unit in the fireplace wall, making the shelves slightly indented (for ease of access), but installing them evenly. He also removed an old grill insert to the side of the fireplace (no way would I ever grill meat indoors, next to my white couch! Ha!) and we played off of the symmetry of the nooks to have them as our dry wood storage.

And speaking of wood storage, since the whole idea of this room was for the family to spend time together (be it playing a game around the ottoman, reading while watching the snowfall and enjoying the fireplace, or decorating our Christmas tree while watching “The Sound of the Music”), having this massive wood burning fireplace working well was a must. This is a task that has taken us many trials and errors, a lot of invested money and time, and several years… and we are still not there… yet.

Before we could even attempt to use the fireplace, we had to move out the bulky fireplace insert which was not working properly (this was not an easy task. It took three very able, very strong construction men to do so!). We then had to call in experts to repair the inside cracks of our masonry chimney. We were given a safe “go ahead!” for use. We attempted (and failed) the use of the fireplace. Within minutes our family room was filled with smoke. We were then instructed that due to the massive size of the fireplace, we should try adding a damper to control the amount of smoke coming back into the house. And so we invested. And again, it failed. It improved. We could get away with maybe an hour of fireplace usage before the room was filled with smoke. And so more aggressive measures were taken — we had to add a custom-made fan at the top of our chimney (and, in order to do that, we had to remove the masonry chimney top that had been built). And, because by then we had a new roof, we had to ask the roofers to come back for a proper boot to run electrical (and, that happen to fall in March of 2020, when NJ stopped due to the Covid-19 Pandemic). That brings us to today. We have a custom-fan installed, but not wired. It is also 95F outside, so I wouldn’t dare attempting to use the fireplace. Will we be able to safely and do so smoke-free? Stay tuned… If our roofers come to install the boot somewhat soon, and our electrician can wire the fan soon after, I should be able to answer that in a couple of months! 

All of this to say… home improvement takes time, so we have to learn to embrace life WHILE you improve. It doesn’t always work. Sometimes, the investment doesn’t pay off. You have to learn to embrace failure and try again. And… if you are investing in making something work, you don’t always have the time and money to invest to make it look pretty, or just how you want it. I envision this fireplace with custom-built metal and glass doors, a gorgeous piece of artwork above the mantle, show casing it. One day… For now, this is where our family is spending most of our time together. Not too shabby!

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