The Franklin Living Room
PHOTOGRAPHER: EM Photography
Some rooms sit unused for years — full of potential that never quite gets activated. The Franklin Living Room was exactly that: a space that had always been there but never really worked, drifting between awkward formality and benign neglect. The brief was to make it the heart of the home.
A serene, carefully considered color scheme sets the tone — calm without being cold, layered without being busy. New custom built-ins were designed to look as though they'd always been part of the architecture, giving the room both storage and a sense of permanence. The furniture arrangement and material choices make the room genuinely flexible: ready for a teenager to sprawl across the sectional one afternoon and reset for cocktail hour the next.
The transformation from overlooked room to the most-used space in the house is exactly the kind of outcome that makes this work meaningful.
Design by Kathryn Murphy Interiors · Living room renovation · Custom built-ins · Family living room design · Flexible living space · Chicago interior designer
