Last week we shared how our kitchen came together using mostly pieces we already owned. This week we’re showing the upstairs living area — a bright, versatile room with windows on all four sides. The light and the surrounding greenery make it one of our favorite spots in the house.
We wanted this space to function as a large shared family room rather than split it into separate bedrooms or bathrooms. It’s working beautifully as a combined family room and workspace. Having everyone sleep on the same floor means kids don’t need to travel up or down the stairs in the middle of the night, and during the day this light-filled room (with easy deck access) has become a natural gathering place.
That large double window with the transom sits centered on the long wall, and it naturally divides the room into two zones: a living area on the right (anchored by a big area rug) and an office/art zone on the left. For scale, the gray rug is 8×10 and the sofa is an impressive 93 inches long — this is a genuinely large room.
Many readers with smaller homes say they prefer larger shared spaces and smaller sleeping rooms because shared rooms feel more spacious. We agree. Between this upstairs room, a big shared area downstairs, and the upstairs deck, our daily life centers on communal spaces — which we love.
On the left side of the room we built a long desk for homework, art projects, and as a workstation when we use our large desktop monitor. Our laptop still moves around the house — often to the kitchen table or the deck — so this desk acts as the main desktop spot for focused work.
Like the kitchen, most of the furnishings here came from what we already owned. The only new purchases were a few chairs for the desk, some storage baskets, and a new TV since we moved without one. We sold some items in our previous house, so we spent a little to replace those essentials.
Nothing here is perfectly finished yet, but things fell into place remarkably well after hauling our furniture over. We don’t feel pressured to replace anything right away, which is a relief.
This lounge area started out fairly plain back in February, and after a fresh coat of Pure White paint, refinished pine floors, and placing our furniture it now feels inviting and settled. Good light helps, too.
Most of the pieces will look familiar — the couch came from our old living room, the rug from our son’s former bedroom, and the wall-mounted bookshelf from our beach house living room. Even though many items had never been together before, the layout we initially tried has mostly stayed the same.
The seating faces the TV because that wall was essentially the only place where a screen could hang without blocking a window. Not the most glamorous reason for placement, but practical — and it works for our TV habits.
We did invest in a Frame TV since it’s likely our only television. We like how flush it sits against the wall and the magnetic bezel that gives it a framed look, though in everyday use we often leave it turned off rather than using the art screen. It’s a nice compromise between form and function.
We also added a bottom shelf to a white console to create storage for board games, and paired it with felt baskets to keep things tidy. The games tend to be played on the upstairs deck after dinner, so having them nearby makes sense.
Above the TV you’ll notice a compact wall unit — a mini-split that provides efficient heating and cooling. We preferred a less visible vent solution, but multiple HVAC pros recommended this unit to ensure the room would be as comfortable as the rest of the house. Function won out, and it performs exactly as needed.
Access to the deck helped shape furniture placement too. We left a clear corridor to the door, and although the rug slightly overlaps the doorway area, it doesn’t hinder movement. It’s surprising how well pieces from a 3,150-square-foot colonial translate into this smaller, lighter 1,400-square-foot beach house.
The shallow floating bookshelf we installed on a narrow wall seemed risky, but it has been a smart use of space. It’s shallow enough to stay out of the way and turns an awkward sliver of wall into functional storage.
We’ve ordered a large pendant to hang from the central ceiling junction box and, after living through a hot month, we’re confident we don’t need a ceiling fan there. The room stays comfortable thanks to the mini-split and the cross-breezes from the windows and deck door.
The workspace side — the “business” end of our room — is essentially a condensed version of the art and homework area we had in our previous house. We used two Ikea drawer units, iron legs, and a countertop to create a long shared desk for the kids and a separate desk for adult work. It handled distance learning and day-to-day art projects very well.
The grown-up desk is actually Sherry’s desk from when we first got married. We pared down paper files before the move, digitized what we needed, and now use a few shared drawers. I even tucked our printer under one of the drawer bases to keep it accessible but out of the way.
I’m writing this from my desk right now and it’s a joy to look up at trees instead of a blank wall. The room has plenty of empty floor space on the office side — we might add a second rug someday, but for now we’re letting the layout evolve naturally instead of buying to fill every gap.
Some pieces, like the benches near the stair landing, are simply filling space for now. We kept them because they’re useful and might find a more permanent role later, perhaps in a guest room.
So that’s the current state of our upstairs living area. It won’t stay exactly the same forever, but we’re grateful that so many pieces from our prior home work well here. For now, I’m going to look out the window for a bit — or maybe take my laptop out to the deck.
P.S. You can catch up on our Florida house renovation in our Florida house category. From the exterior makeover to projects we planned from afar and recent floor refinishing, we’ve covered a lot of ground.
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