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Living Room Renovation With Sherwin Williams

Living Room Renovation With Sherwin Williams

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Check out our complete living room refresh

Living Room Renovation - SLAYathomemother.com

Hi friends!

I am over the moon for this post, and I think you’ll agree when I show you how our Living Room Refresh turned out!

We recently kicked off a series of home improvements in our home, and thanks to a week worth of vacation days my husband was able to take, we really changed things up in our living space.

This post was written in partnership with Sherwin-Williams, however, all opinions are my own. 

Before Our Living Room Refresh

Before I show you how our living room refresh turned out, I need you to know how it looked before.

It wasn’t pretty. 

Everything was brown/orange/yellow, including the lighting.

Before I started blogging, I didn’t really see anything wrong with this picture.

Everything essentially matched, right?

Score.

But I didn’t realize how dingy, dark, and muted our living space was.

No amount of turquoise curtains or pillows could save this room.

We even had ‘soft white’ bulbs, which really give off a yellow-like glow, enhancing the warmer tones of all of the beige-y tones.

The windows and natural light are great in this room, though, so it’s still one of my favorites.

Living Room Refresh With Sherwin Williams - SlayAtHomeMother.com

After Our Living Room Refresh

Here’s what our living room looks like now…

Don’t worry, I’ve got all the details on how we went from dark and dingy to bright and rustic below…

Living Room Refresh With Sherwin Williams - SlayAtHomeMother.com

Our Living Room Renovation

Living Room Refresh With Sherwin Williams - SlayAtHomeMother.com

We first decided to take down the rock wall.

These were actual rocks that were barely secured to the wall.

Some of the rocks had actually fallen from the wall and shattered.

Talk about dangerous

We opted to redo our accent wall with some peel-and-stick reclaimed wood – you can read about that HERE.

Living Room Refresh With Sherwin Williams - SlayAtHomeMother.com

Living Room Refresh With Sherwin Williams - SlayAtHomeMother.com

To get rid of the ‘Smoker’s Yellow’ color (which wasn’t actually from smoking, but sure looked like it), Chris and I opted to use the same color (Gray Screen SW 7071) in our living room that we used in our dining room from Sherwin-Williams.

Gray Screen is a beautiful, cool, neutral gray with blue undertones.

With our darker furniture colors and natural sunlight, the color takes on a little bit of a blue color.

Which we absolutely love. 

Living Room Refresh With Sherwin Williams - SlayAtHomeMother.com

Because this is a room that was added to our home by the original owners (we are only the second family to own this late 1950’s home), they chose to cover the walls with paneling.

To get the walls covered, we used a paintbrush to get into the crevices of the wood first and then used a paint roller with a heavy nap to cover the rest of the wall.

It took us only one coat to cover the walls, but we did go over the walls with a roller lightly one more time to ensure that sure everything was covered.

Living Room Refresh With Sherwin Williams - SlayAtHomeMother.com

You May Also Like: DIY Painted Fireplace For Less Than $150!

This is one progress picture that I love – it shows the accent wall in place, one of the walls painted in Gray Screen SW 7071 next to another wall in that dull tan/yellow color.

My mother-in-law even said the old paint on the walls was suddenly looking green, which she had never noticed before.

Not what I wanted to hear, but she was right.

And if you look closely, you can see the original DARK color of the paneling in this room at the very top of the wall where we removed a piece of trim.

I can’t even IMAGINE what this room must have originally looked like with all of that dark paneling.

It probably seemed much smaller.

Living Room Refresh With Sherwin Williams - SlayAtHomeMother.com

Living Room Refresh With Sherwin Williams - SlayAtHomeMother.com

We replaced most of the trim in this room and painted the trim we didn’t replace.

We also painted the vent covers white.

All of the outlets, which were a yellow color, were exchanged with brand new dark brown outlets.

We chose a dark brown color over white because we wanted the outlet on the accent wall to match those throughout the rest of the room, and the dark brown color looks best against the reclaimed wood.

For the window in our living room, we decided to replace the vertical blinds (which were a dull yellow in color) with new white vertical blinds.

Living Room Refresh With Sherwin Williams - SlayAtHomeMother.com

Accent Wall With Plank & Mill - SlayAtHomeMother.com

With some new sheer curtains, gray carpeting, and daylight lightbulbs, our living room is so airy and bright!

Seriously, the difference light bulbs can make on the way paint color looks is incredible!

Living Room Refresh With Sherwin Williams - SlayAtHomeMother.com

I love how the color of our walls helps brighten up our living space in such a refreshing way, and even makes our fireplace and new accent wall POP.

We ended up trading our dark furniture out for lighter furniture from Gardner-White, which you can see here.

Chris and I are already thrilled with how this room turned out.


What home projects are you working on this year? Tell me in the comments below!

*Post originally published August 2018, last updated December 2021.

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Cristina - Memories of the Pacific

Tuesday 4th of September 2018

You've done a wonderful job! Looks amazing :)

Corinne

Friday 14th of September 2018

Thank you so much, Cristina! It was a lot of hard work, but really fun at the same time - our Sherwin-Williams Gray Screen paint color was the perfect choice for our space!

Meredith

Tuesday 4th of September 2018

Oh this is such a gorgeous before and after! We love Sherwin Williams paint as well! So nice!

Corinne

Friday 14th of September 2018

It's great, right? It covers so well, and cleans up great. We chose the 'Gray Screen' color, and I think it just goes. Thank you so much for reading, Meredith!

Meredith

Tuesday 4th of September 2018

Oh what a great before and after! I love Sherwin Williams! We used Alabaster White in our living room and we love it!

Amber Battishill

Tuesday 4th of September 2018

Love this update so much! The lighter colors really brightened the room and I love the peel and stick accent wall behind the fireplace!

Corinne

Friday 14th of September 2018

Thank you so much, Amber!

Ayana Nell

Tuesday 4th of September 2018

Omg that looks incredible! I have the same problem right now. My nephew told me not long ago that my house looks like a 'pirate ship'. It's all browns, wood, dingy, etc. I feel like I can never truly get it clean because of how DARK it feels! It's inspiring to see that such simple and easy tweaks can totally change the feel of a room! Good job!!

Corinne

Friday 14th of September 2018

OMG, 'pirate ship'?? Haha, kids are hilarious! I had the same problem before, paint makes such a huge difference! Thank you so much for reading, Ayana!

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