Two Day Living Room Makeover with Invitation Homes

Okay, y'all. This is truly a makeover you have to see to believe!

We were so honored when our friends at Invitation Homes asked us to help execute a living room makeover for one of their leased homes in Southern California last month.

The makeover was part of a contest Invitation Homes held earlier this year, encouraging residents to submit videos sharing what they love most about their leased home. Michael and Chelsea (along with their three adorable daughters) were the contest winners and we were thrilled to work alongside the Invitation Homes team to show the family how easy it is to bring your own style and personality into a leased home.

Just like all of our e-design clients, Michael and Chelsea provided us with photos of the home and shared details about their style. We matched them with one of our lead e-designers, Heather, to make their Pinterest dreams a reality!

With some quick and easy lease-friendly updates, we totally transformed the look and feel of their home in just two days!

Michael and Chelsea love a coastal style, so we incorporated woven textures, various shades of blue, and coastal prints to bring their vision to life. The woven light fixture in the living room REALLY makes an impression in the space.

Changing up your lighting with a fixture that better reflects your personal style is an easy, lease-friendly way to update a space. Just check with your property manager ahead of time and be sure to hang on to anything you remove, so you can switch them again when you move out. We also added ceramic table lamps for another level of lighting to the room, making it feel lighter and brighter. Lighter throw pillows and table accessories balance the heaviness of the brown furniture.

Artwork is another great way to personalize a room and we chose three large, coastal prints for the TV room drawing the eye up and elongating the space. This artwork was actually a fun, money-saving DIY project too! We purchased stock photos, which we printed ourselves, and hung them in oversized white frames from a big box store. So easy and a fraction of the cost of a typical framed piece this size!

Michael and Chelsea's home has a great, open floorplan. It's one of the features they love most about the house. But the large living areas had them stumped from a design perspective. They weren't sure how to arrange the furniture to utilize both living spaces.

We created two distinct spaces, one for tv watching and one for conversation and family board games (something they love to do together). The area rugs in these two spaces really help define the different "zones" and offer another opportunity to infuse their own style into the home.

While you can't always change the flooring in a leased home, you can use area rugs for color, pattern, and to define the various areas in a large space.

We went with a round mirror in the adjacent sitting area to bounce more light around the room, brightening and lightening the overall look and feel. A floor lamp by the sofa offers a nice spot for reading and adds some height to the wall.

Light throw pillows brighten the dark brown sofa while the textured floor poufs give the kids another seating option.

We placed an entry console on the opposite wall to serve as a drop zone for mail or keys as the family comes and goes. It helps define this area as the entry and again, the table lamps provide another layer of lighting for the room.

One of our favorite spaces in this whole transformation is the kids' playroom. Michael and Chelsea told us that the girls play and practice their gymnastics in the space adjacent to the dining room while mom and dad are getting dinner ready. So, we kept the area open, but added some great storage to conceal toys and brought in two desks for homework on the opposite side.

The gallery wall over the storage cabinet features more coastal prints that tie in with the look of the living room, but the asymmetrical arrangement feels more casual...perfect for the playroom. We chose prints with similar color tones and placed them all in white frames to get a cohesive look.

The family absolutely LOVED the peel-and-stick anchor decals from Urban Walls that we placed by the desk. Anchors actually hold special meaning for the family and we were thrilled to show them a creative and lease-friendly way to create a feature wall in the home. These decals are super easy to put up, and even easier to take down.

The anchors add such a fun and youthful touch to this play area and the desks are the perfect place for the girls to do their homework.

We had such a blast designing this space and the family's reaction was priceless! Check out the full video reveal here:

Thanks to Michael and Chelsea and to our friends at Invitation Homes for including us in this special project!