Cozy Mid-Century Modern Media Room Transformation

The basement family room project at my sister Alyse’s house is complete! I transformed her ugly soffit ceiling basement into a cozy mid-century modern media room for the whole family. By wrapping this basement with wallpaper, wood, and family photos, I was able to take this space from a cold basement to a warm and inviting space that everyone wants to hang out in. Let me show you how I did it!

The Cozy Mid-Century Modern Media Room

The Design

Tap the image above to shop this cozy media room!

For every transformation I do, I make an initial design board so that way I can see how all of the elements I am picking out look together. And for the most part, the finished space ends up looking pretty close to the original design board. But every once in a while, I get started on a space and changes to the original design pop up.

So, at the start of this project, I shared the design board for this cozy mid-century modern media room. I also shared how just about everything that could go wrong at the start of this project, did in fact go wrong. From wallpaper changes to ugly soffits, we faced so many design challenges during this transformation. The only thing we kept from the before space was the couch. Every other piece, including this lamp, was picked to pull together the mid-century modern feel that we were going for.

See the original design and hear all about the challenges we faced in the beginning, HERE.

The Ugly Ceiling Soffits

Unfortunately, in many homes, ugly ceiling soffits in basements are not uncommon. And they serve a purpose: to hide the duct work. But let’s face it, they are an eyesore and they themselves need to be hidden. This basement happens to have two of them. So my goal in this space was to make the soffits appear less ugly. I did this by painting them the same dark gray color that matches the base of the accent wall and the wallpaper. In a way it makes the part of the ceiling we left white appear taller visually and the soffits themselves just kind of disappear.

The White Oak Slat Wall

The focal point of this whole design is the beautiful white oak slat wall. My challenge in this space was to make this asymmetrical room feel balanced. One thing I did know, was that a feature wall was needed to draw the eye away from the soffits. This wood slat wall perfectly did that. It brought in so much warmth to the space that it missing. And although it may look complicated, don’t be intimidated. This feature wall was so easy to put up. I put together a full tutorial on it HERE. Plus, I link to a video that shows you exactly how to install it. To balance out the feature wall, I hung a moody peel-and-stick wallpaper on the remaining walls.

Tap the image above to shop these Walmart pieces!

I finished out this project with some affordable and stylish furnishing pieces from Walmart, which really helped bring the whole room together. And of course, I had to hang the family photos to personalize the space even more. As I always say, ALWAYS hang the family photos. I’m so happy I was able to take this stark, cold basement and transform it into the perfect cozy mid-century modern media room that my sister and her whole family can enjoy.