Living Room Medium Hardwood Floors Standard Layout Fireplace Storage Pendant Lighting Design Photos and Ideas

Sometimes all it takes is a little luck. For a young married couple, it came in the form of this rare find: a 19th-century, three-story, single-family home in the heart of Paris. The building was a charmer with good bones, but was in need of some serious care. In a vibrant retrofit by architect Pierre-Louis Gerlier that includes structural reinforcements, the reimagined design is set off with a new floor plan. The lower level now serves as a space for the couple’s children, with the public areas—including an open-plan living/dining room and kitchen—on the floor above. Upstairs, the attic has been transformed into a very large primary bedroom with a green-and-white bathroom suite. The living room (pictured) showcases the firm’s bespoke carpentry work with a beautiful, mossy-green built-in bookcase that frames a new fireplace, and a staircase surrounded by arched doorways that hold hidden storage. “We created visual breakthroughs in order to connect the different spaces,” says Gerlier. “The rounded arches are there to help magnify these moments.”
Concrete from the exterior continues indoors as a fireplace surround. For the couch, Annemie found the wooden base and cushion covers in a secondhand store and used baby mattresses as inserts. David made the oak back.
"The angular geometry of the catwalk trusses, the kitchen island, and the bathroom projection together with the 60-degree pitched roof make the project’s geometry performative and visually interesting," says Edgar.
The built-in sofa anchors the living room and faces the existing fireplace. The Leather Oval Chair with a red steel base sits off to the side, and the coffee table was fashioned by attaching vintage steel legs to another tile sample board.
At a 1954 midcentury home in the West hills of Portland, Penny Black Interiors deftly updated the residence with standout cabinetry, carefully-selected tile, and wallpaper galore. The renovation balanced preserving the home's innate character and updating its function for modern life.
The existing living room received modern built-in storage and blue paint that syncs with the addition.
The original fireplace was cleaned up and repaired. "Also, the room previously had just a small passageway to the kitchen and no real place to put a television. We’re not big TV watchers, so we wanted to keep the mantle TV-free, so that it was not a focal point of the room," says Valencia. "We opened up the passage to the kitchen to give the home a modern layout and added a built-in TV/media cabinet (on the left wall)."
White paint considerably brightens up the space, and now the living room overlooks the pool.
The living room boasts original wood paneled ceiling and walls, and beautiful built-in bookshelves.
The upper level is home to the dining room, living room, and kitchen.
Built in wood shelving sits below clerestory windows, opposite a large brick fireplace with a sculptural chute.  Expansive windows provide views of the Bay beyond.