“What’s Going On with the Chris Loves Julia Room Makeover?” Part I

It’s one of the more common questions we get in our inbox these days. Now that we’re knee-deep into the Charlotte House Revival x Chris Loves Julia room makeover, we thought it’d be a good time idea to give a project update & recap of how we got here!

First and foremost, the Chris Loves Julia Room Makeover Giveaway is currently In-Progress. The living room is mostly cleared so that I can work on our wall treatment (limewash!). Once the walls are done and the new electronics are installed, we’ll move our new Room & Board furniture back in so we can reassemble the room and bring the vision to life. We’re posting live updates throughout the week, so be sure you’re following our Stories on Instagram or Facebook.

How It All Began

Back in February of last year, we were thrilled to be voted the winners of a Room Makeover Giveaway from Chris Loves Julia. The CLJ audience decided they were most excited to see a renovation of our former Fraternity House living room (out of over 3,000 applicants and five finalists!), and we must say, they sure have great taste.

The Original Plan

We started with a quick Zoom call with Julia to talk about our hopes for the space. The plan was for Julia to send us a Mood Board with her style & ideas. We’d send some general feedback & approvals, then their team would fly up to Lancaster and tackle the makeover while we wrestled the kids out of their way for a few days.

The Actual Happenings

As we got closer to our anticipated makeover date, the Mood Board hadn’t arrived yet. But as someone who’d been browsing living room furniture online for several years for this room, I was worried we might not have the time to source something that could work for the space.

But in the bigger picture, I’d also noticed that Julia had posted a few times about her father needing some serious medical treatments. She and her sisters had been traveling and taking turns to help out, and it all seemed pretty taxing & stressful.

Adjustments Were Made

It was clear to us that more important things were happening, and in no world is a living room more important than a family. I reached out to Chris and Julia and offered the option of pushing things back a few months to give real life a chance to breathe.

After a little back & forth, we settled on a new timeline for a few months down the road. Julia & Chris initially didn’t want to delay the makeover, but realistically, there was a lot on their plates and it just made sense to give things more time.

Before we knew it, we were once again just a few weeks from the (updated) makeover date. This time, we reconvened to come up with a modified plan that would work for all parties.

Instead of the Chris Loves Julia team completing the room in a few days, they made a quick visit to Lancaster to see the space in person to get a full understanding of both the room and the overall aesthetic of Charlotte House. Julia then crafted us a personalized Mood Board based on our home & needs, and generously contributed to the budget to make the room a reality.

Jim and I then took over the reigns of sourcing everything we needed and executing the vision. We can make any adjustments to the design if we’d like, and have continued support from the CLJ team behind the scenes.

The new plan gives me peace of mind knowing I have full control of how things function for this huge crew we’ve got. We also love getting to have a hands-on role, because honestly, it’s what we love to do! But most of all, we’re grateful for the support to make over this living room makeover a reality. Because when it comes down to our home, we try to do exactly what Julia always says: “Love where you live!”