Well, this is a first for me! Of all the houses we’ve lived in since getting married 15 years ago (6 to be exact), we have never fully “finished” a living room. Yes, we’ve purchased a sofa, hung art here and there, and even laid down a rug a couple  times, but we have never finished a family room to the point that we could sit back and say “ahhh – all done”! Today is that day though people, and would you believe this entire space was designed and executed in just over one-month? Neither can I!

I am so excited to share with all of you our fully completed family room that we designed in collaboration with La-Z-Boy! It all started with an IG Story La-Z-Boy posted earlier last year of a new sofa model being debuted at High Point Market. It had clean lines, a modern silhouette, but also looked super comfortable! I had been wanting to jump on the white-sofa bandwagon for as long as I can remember and after fixing my eyes on the Paxton – I instantly knew this was what the family room in our new home needed! The Paxton design is available in a variety of shapes and sizes – from a standard sofa, to a love seat, to a chair-and-a-half, and even a fully customizable sectional like we chose for this space.

Shop the La-Z-Boy Paxton Sectional HERE

Our family room is quite large and I wanted to ensure we maximized every square inch of the space with functional seating that would accommodate kids, their friends, and lots of guests when we hosted parties and get-togethers. To ensure we got exactly the look we were going for, a designer from the La-Z-Boy team visited our house for an in-home design consultation to measure and determine the best sofa configuration for our space. More on that process coming soon in a follow-up blog post, but it was exactly what we needed to envision the sectional in the room.

We eventually decided on a 6-piece L-shape Paxton sectional that spanned the length and width of our family room. On delivery day I may have had a brief moment of panic as I wondered if it was too big and overpowering for the room, but after consulting the plans again I knew we had made the right decision. Now I couldn’t imagine a smaller piece in the space and absolutely love how much seating it provides. All four of us can lay out on the sofa, and if you ask my son he counted that we could fit 20 people on it if we wanted to :)

Shop the La-Z-Boy Avenue Occasional Chairs HERE

We paired the Paxton sectional with two Avenue occasional chairs in the most gorgeous cognac colour. I love the scale and comfort of these chairs and how they offer a pop of colour against the white sofa. La-Z-Boy offers many chair options, but what drew me to the Avenue was how even though they are large chair with major presence, the armless design allows them to flow in the space without appearing overly bulky. They are also so comfortable and the perfect place to curl up with a good book!

Shop my outfit: Sweater | Headband (Zara, similar HERE) | Pants (old, similar HERE) | Shoes

Shop the Drew Chandelier with Six Lights HERE

Shop these Console Tables HERE

La-Z-Boy literally has hundreds of fabric and colour options to choose from when designing your sofa and chairs, but you’ll notice that with all of those choices we went with a pearl-white colour. This may come as a shock to many since we have two kids under seven, and it was definitely the topic of many comments I received regarding our sofa. Let me start off by saying that the white-sofa-life is not for the faint of heart. LOL It’s definitely a conscious decision that quite frankly requires a bit extra care and effort, but is also totally manageable from a family perspective. As mentioned above, I have wanted a white sofa for as long as I can remember because it creates a bright and airy space unlike any other colour and always looks sharp and crisp. We have set a few ground rules in our family room in order to avoid any major mishaps – like no eating, drinking, or dark jeans on the sofa – and this goes for all grown-ups too!  Other than that though, life goes on as usual and no one gets hurt! HAHA

But thanks to La-Z-Boy they immediately put my mind at ease when it came to our colour selection. Although thoughts of spilled juice, wine, and messy little fingers did cross my mind, they offer a selection of iClean fabrics that are designed to withstand even the messiest of spills! The stain-resistant fabric repels spills before they seep into the fabric and stain, giving me complete peace of mind when it to comes to those unavoidable situations. We chose the iClean fabric in Pearl (which is a creamier white for all of you who asked about this shade) for the sofa, and in the month or so that we’ve owned it we have had to wipe up a few spots here and there and they all came out like a dream! I also love how La-Z-Boy has a 3-yr warranty on all their iClean fabrics so just in case something doesn’t come out (although it totally will), they will back you up and help resolve the issue.

Shop similar gold coffee tables HERE and HERE

Like I mentioned above, we put together this entire room in just under one month, and I’m still completely shocked it turned out so well in such a short period of time! The La-Z-Boy pieces arrived immediately after we returned from our trip to Asia and then it was crunch time to try and pull all the other elements of the space together cohesively. Even with holiday shipping schedules, all of the other pieces I ordered online for the room arrived on time and exactly the way I had expected.

For the chandelier, of course I turned to lighting extraordinaire Sazerac Stitches for this amazing Drew Chandelier with Six Lights that I still can’t get enough of – it makes me smile every time I look at it! I am obsessed with every single piece that Kirsten and Matt create at their shop in New Orleans and I’m pretty sure in time our entire house will have lighting ONLY from them :) I wanted something sleek, bold, and black for the family room to really pop against all the white, and the Italian, mid-century modern lines of this piece were all I could have hoped for. We also have four pot-lights on our ceiling for a really well-lit space, so the chandelier upped the style factor and really tied the whole room together!

Shop these striped pillows HERE

With the bones of the space complete – all that was left was a LOT of decorating (sometimes the hardest thing to do in a room). We have 3 large shelves on either side of the television that required some serious styling to bring it in line with the rest of the space, and since they are such huge shelves they needed a lot of things to create the really curated look I was going for.

Shelf decor is not something you can rush, and it requires time to style and restyle until it’s just right. It took me a good two weeks to source and shop for the right pieces and arrange them (over and over again) in a way that talked to me and the overall style of the room. One of my favourite home decor shops that I turn to over and over again is H&M Home. While they do have a store downtown Toronto, I love to shop online for their trendy and super-affordable pieces that work with a variety of home decor styles and always look so luxe! I chose a variety of pieces like vases, pillows, and gold boxes that ended up looking so chic and on point in our family room.

Shop the Drapery HERE and Drapery Rods HERE

Shop these black velvet pillows HERE

Well, that pretty much sums up our family room design and I couldn’t be happier with how that it all turned out. We transformed a large empty space into the coziest room that the whole family enjoys spending time in. I love how stylish and modern it looks, yet it’s also so functional and inviting. Thank you to all of our partners who helped make this the loveliest room in our home :)

SOURCE LIST: ℅ La-Z-Boy: Paxton Sectional and Avenue Occasional Chairs | ℅ Sazerac Stitches: Drew Chandelier | ℅ Desenio: Gallery Wall | c/o H&M Home: Vases, Gold Boxes, Gold Frames, Black Wire Basket, Blush Pink Velvet Pillows, Black Velvet Pillows, Stiped Pillows, Cotton Blanket, Candles, Candle Stick Holders, Decorative Box | ℅ Vancouver Candle Co: Candles | Built-in Cabinetry: Vanitar Kitchens | Rug: IKEA | Console Tables: CB2 | Portrait Art: Josh Young Design House | Coffee Table: Nuevo Living (similar here and here) | Blue Side Table, Drapery Rods, Drapery Rings, White Tray: West Elm | Drapery: Wayfair | Navy and Gold Pillows, Blue Glass Bowl, Decorative Glasses, Soft Blanket, White Pillows, Decorative Objects, Coasters: HomeSense | Marble Side Table (Similar), Bookends, Pair of Navy Vases, Gold Aluminum Bowl: Structube | Books: Value Village | Pampas Grass Floral Arrangements: Bloomscout

*This post is in collaboration with La-Z-Boy, however, all opinions are always my own.
*Photos by Darby Mitchell Photography