A Modern + Masculine Teen Rec Room Reveal

Happy Monday guys!!! How about those Eagles??? So who watched the game (or pretended to watch the game while scrolling Instagram) and what was your favorite commercial? I kinda loved the Eli Manning and Odell Beckham ‘Dirty Dancing’ one. But of course I am a girl of the 80’s-90’s!

A Modern + Masculine Teen Rec Room Reveal

You guys probably don’t remember and if you’re new here you definitely won’t, but my other half and I started dreaming up this teen rec room space for his teenage twin boys and daughter last year. We wanted the room to be comfortable and fun for the kids but also simple and stylish (duh!). It was important that it be bright and uncluttered so the kids have the freedom to enjoy it.

The room started as a pretty terrible addition to the house by a previous owner so we had to take it down to the studs and basically start from scratch. After a long (and frugal) renovation it was transformed into this modern and slightly masculine space for the kids and their friends to hang out!

Here is the original design board and you can see that we followed the major design elements pretty closely and we think it turned out really cool!

We ended up using kelly green as an accent color instead of yellow because that is their high school color and it made the space much more personal.  I wasn’t able to get the faux longhorn or the round mirror passed by the teen tribe but I did succeed in keeping the major elements in tact and also some brass accents in the space.

Design Board

Shop the room:

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Here are a few pictures after the demo. There were lots of repairs that had to be made just to get it ready to be put back together – so when I say we started from scratch…we actually started from scratch!

Before

 

One of the major issues we had in this room was lighting, but the opposite lighting problem you may think of when it comes to interiors. There are so many windows in here that there was actually too much light! But, wait let me explain. We LOVE the natural light – as all designers do – and it’s especially nice in the afternoon, but it really interfered when the kids wanted to watch TV or play video games in the daytime.

After

We went around and around about how to cover the windows from curtains to roman shades, bamboo, blinds and so on. At some point around the same time, The Shade Store reached out to me asking if we wanted to try out their shades. At first I wasn’t leaning in the direction of shades, I was actually somewhere between bamboo and curtains, but after visiting the Charlotte show room and seeing what all the different fabric shades could do we knew this was the best option to solve our problems!

The Shade Store

After looking through so many fabric samples we chose simple grey roller shades. The shades filter the light so that we don’t lose it altogether but there is no glare on the TV. The kids can now enjoy the TV during the day and at the same time the room doesn’t feel like a dungeon.

The fabric decision was a difficult one because we loved so many of the designs. We almost chose one of the Novogratz design samples but in the end decided that we wanted the shades to be a subtle element in the room rather than a bold statement. The Shade Store also carries Jonathan Adler, Nate Berkus and Kate Spade fabrics which got me real excited for future projects! And you can completely customize your shades to you needs even with motorization capabilities.

 

If you’re in the market for window treatments or if you guys just happen to be in the SouthPark area you really need to stop into the show room. The design in the store itself is incredible!

 

The Window Treatments

Once the window treatments were installed you can see how bright the room is without the shades and you can see the soft filtered light when the shades are down.

Here the right shade is down and the left two are rolled up. The shades don’t take away the light but filter softly into the room.

We are extremely happy with the way they turned out and how well they fit into the room design. The grey is just dark enough to offset the white walls but still light and bright like the rest of the room.

We went with a single valance on the large set of windows and the smaller windows got individual valances.

I love the sleek simple design which is exactly what I was going for throughout the rest of the space.

Once we had placed the order the shades came quick and they were out to install within a couple days. The installation was very smooth and Lisa and the staff at the Charlotte store were terrific! They held our hand through the millions of questions we asked along the way!

Details

Now let’s dig into a few of the other details in the room like this Ikea media cabinet and cool honeycomb clock!

The LAX letters came from Hobby Lobby and are sitting on these exposed stone shelves in the fireplace surround.

How cool is this antique fireback and we sprayed the inside of the fireplace with heat resistant gold spray paint to give it a little something extra.

One of my favorite details of the space is this gorgeous fan! It’s so beautiful it might as well be a work of art. I’ve recommended this fan to several other people and they all love it!

And how great are these throw pillows? Unfortunately I can’t find the ‘This is the life’ pillow online anymore but I think it’s so fitting for this teen space.

On either side of the main window we added stools and shelves that can function as additional eating counters when friends are over. Everyone in the house is a Dave Matthews fan so the two concert posters were the perfect artwork. They also function as pops of color among the rest of the decor.

The rug and the coffee table pack a big punch of texture. This coffee table is sold out but this one is a good alternative. And the leather sofa and swivel chairs were Craigslist finds.

So…what do you guys think? Don’t you wish you could’ve watched the big game over here? I feel like I haven’t revealed a room makeover in a long time so it was fun to get this one out into the world especially since we have been working on it for SO long.

Cheers and have a great week!

{Thanks to The Shade Store for providing the shades for this room makeover and thank YOU for supporting the brands that make Simple Stylings a reality. All designs and opinions are my own.}