“Circus Room” Progress & Plans!

A lot of the projects in our new home that have been in the planning phase for a few months are finally starting to kick into gear! This weekend we started the install of our new Elfa closet system which I’m sooo excited about. Since moving in, our clothes have been hanging on freestanding racks and random closets throughout our house, making it game to try and figure out where that one shirt you’re looking for may be 🙈! I’ll let you know how installation goes and will share a closet reveal with all the details once we’re done! (post includes affiliate links; full disclosure statement available {here})

We’re finally starting to make some progress on the “circus room” too. If you’re new here, the “circus room” is the nickname that stuck for the small room off of our kitchen. It has an octagonal ceiling that ends in a peak, giving it those big tent circus vibes! This is what it looked like when we moved in:

The only changes I’ve made to the space since moving in are removing the floral wallpaper on the half-wall and taking down the drapery swags (but even those minor changes made the room feel more bright and airy!):

Now we’re on to the bigger changes that will really transform the space including…

1. Removing the Columns & Half Wall

Yes, I’ve been DYING to get rid of those columns and half wall to open the space up to the kitchen. Since those columns are actual structural supports (we had a structural engineer come evaluate them and our other four interior columns before demo-ing anything and having our house fall down on us 😊), supports needs to be added in our attic space first. You guys are always interested in knowing contractor costs (and I had NO idea what to expect costwise myself) so I thought I’d share that the cost for a structural engineer to evaluate all six columns and write up his recommendations for how to support the circus room ceiling before removing the columns was $400.

Our contractor understandably wanted to wait until the weather cooled down to rework the supports for the ceiling (otherwise he’d be working in 100+ degrees in the attic) so now that we’re there with the weather, the big knock-down will be happening within the next few weeks once we can work us into his schedule.

2. Adding Planking to the Octagonal Ceiling

As I’ve mentioned before, we’re planning on adding planking/shiplap to our octagonal ceiling and flattening out the peaked area at the center a bit so the ceiling is a beautiful feature of the space instead of looking like a spot where you want to hang a trapeze.

Sources: IKEA sectional (similar)  |  Blue embroidered stripe pillows  |  Pink block print pillows  |  Blue plaid pillow  |  Round coffee table  | Faux fiddle leaf fig tree

3. Swapping Out the Fan With a Statement Making Chandelier

We have a LOT of fans in our house and while I’m keeping most of them, the fan in this room will be hitting the highway. I had been eyeing {this gorgeous vertical chandelier} for the space ever since we bought the house but had never seriously considered buying it because it’s ridiculously pricey:

But then way back in June there was this crazy one day 50% off promo code at One Kings Lane (plus the base price on the fixture was less then than it is now) so I jumped on it. Much to Jeff’s dismay, it’s been sitting in a huge box in the garage (that he’s been on a mission to organize) ever since so he’ll be just as glad to see this beauty go up as I will.  The best price I can find on it currently is {here} where you can get 20% off with code GRATEFUL.

4. Replacing the Carpeting with Hardwoods

We’ll also be getting rid of the old green carpet and adding hardwoods to the space that will be continuous with the kitchen hardwoods. Right now our flooring is quite the mishmash between the newly refinished hardwoods ({this post} on refinishing hardwood floors has all the details on the stain and topcoat we used), the yet-to-be-refinished hardwoods in our kitchen, and the green carpet in the circus room:

One lesson I’ve learned from making some mistakes in our Cincinnati home is to have an overall flooring plan for your whole house before you do anything and to finish your flooring in stages if needed. It’s worth living with flooring you don’t love for a bit to save a good bit of money but not having to redo anything in the long run! Eventually all of our flooring will be the same finish of hardwoods and the spaces will flow nicely with one another.

5. Adding New Sconce Lighting

When we bought our home, I hardly even noticed all of the sconces in this room since several of them were hidden by the drapery swags, but there are a total of six wall sconces in this space. Some of them are in really awkward places so we’re removing four of them and only leaving the wiring for these two remaining sconces that flank the center window:

I’ll be replacing these two sconces with two of {these matte white shaded sconces} which I love (and are a Cyber Monday sale!):

6. Finding a Few New Furniture Pieces

Until recently, the furniture in our “circus” room is all furniture we already had because we wanted to get a better idea of how we’d use the space before buying anything new. We found we really missed all of the storage space we had with the rolling baker’s rack next to our door to the back patio in our old house (it was too wide to use in this house so we sold it before moving). I’ve been hunting for a slimmer storage piece for this space and fell in love with {this gorgeous cabinet} – it has the prettiest lines!:

In comes in three colors – I chose the “slate blue” which I’d describe as a dark gray with a touch of blue. It’s a challenge to get a good pic of the cabinet in our room since there are so many windows throwing light on it but it’s such a beauty! (That awkward sconce to the side of it is one of the ones we’re removing)

And having the storage space for things like extra throws, grilling tools, Cricket’s leashes and jackets, etc is awesome:

I bought the cabinet when it was 20% off but wish I had waited a little longer because you can actually get it for Cyber Monday at 30% off {here}.

With the addition of this cabinet and this small basket we recently hung by the door for Cricket’s leash and our outdoor fan remote, I’ve finally found a home for so many things that were previously cluttering up this space!

Sources: Brass wall hook  |  Hanging basket (this is the large size from the set of two)

Other furniture in this room includes {this bar cart} from our old house which we’ve temporarily been using as a TV stand:

but since Jeff wants to put a bigger TV in here, we’ll eventually be rehoming the bar cart and adding a longer media console or maybe even a dresser to put the TV on (or wall mount it above). These are my favorites I’ve found so far in my search:

Sources: 1. Darla console  |  2. Palmdale woven door console  |  3. Avalon extra wide dresser  |  4. Margot raffia dresser  |  5. Warwick 3 Door TV stand  |  6. Brooke 6-drawer dresser  |  7. Piran 4 door media stand

The small IKEA sectional we have in the room is the one we used in our living room until we moved our nice sectional down to NC. It surprised us by how well it actually fits in here! Our plan is to eventually furnish this room with a sofa a two chairs and move this sectional to the room above our garage where we have the perfect spot for it. We already have two swivel chairs from the living room in our old house that we’ll likely use in this space but we’ll have to go on a hunt for a new sofa. I just started looking but there are a few I found from Maiden Home {here} that I really love the look of – if any of you have a Maiden Home sofa or sectional I’d love to hear your thoughts on it!

7. Paint the Walls

Once the four sconces we’re removing are gone, I’m planning to patch those holes in the wall and paint the whole space! I’d like a light/midtone blue-green that leans more blue than the current color but I don’t think I’ve found “the one” yet. I ordered Samplize samples of four options (Boothbay Gray, Silver Gray, Smoke, & Sterling) and while they’re all pretty colors, none of them are exactly what I have in mind:

It helps SO much to get the large Samplize paint samples (you can find them {here}) – it gives you so much better of an idea of what the color will look like up on the wall than a teeny paint strip does and is a lot less hassle than getting multiple test cans of paint.

There’s LOTS to do but I’m so excited to get going with things! I’ll be sharing every step of remodeling this space on Instagram Stories so follow along {here} if you don’t already!

Also be sure to check out my Cyber Monday post {HERE} if you haven’t seen it already – I share the things I bought on cyber sale (including this Serena & Lily look-alike patio set) plus several other favorite finds that are at their best pricing of the year!

Hope you all have a great start to your week,