Room of the Day: Adding Comfort and Style to a New Jersey Family Room

Lindsey and Chris Amery were expecting a baby and had just moved from New York City to a newly built home in northern New Jersey. The first-time homeowners hired interior designer Cory Connor to add comfort, style and warmth to their minimally furnished home. In the family room, Connor layered in natural textures, soft upholstered pieces and pleasing colors inspired by the nearby coast. The result is a room that balances light and dark, style and comfort, neutral and bright colors, and custom investment pieces with well-designed big-box-store finds. Now the couple has a place in which to entertain as well as relax, watch TV and see their infant son, Pierce, learn to crawl.

Photos by Kaz Arts Photography

Room of the Day
Who lives here: Lindsey and Chris Amery and their infant son, Pierce
Location: Northern New Jersey
Size: 16 feet by 20 feet (320 square feet; 30 square meters)
Interior design: Cory Connor Designs

The room receives fantastic natural light from the windows and French doors; Connor dressed them with simple woven shades that let the light through during the day and offer privacy at night. The shades are cordless for safety. “I would never use cords with a new baby around,” she says.


Layered natural textures — like the woven blinds, grass cloth wallpaper, wood and cotton blend rug, stone coffee table and driftwood, twig and grass accessories — soften the room and give it a subtle coastal-inspired feel. The tables between the blue chairs are wrapped in a shagreen-like material with nailhead trim detailing.

The opening on the right leads to the kitchen, which creates a good flow for entertaining. While the room is stylish and set up to accommodate get-togethers, it’s also cushy and comfortable, so the family can lounge and watch TV together. The soft rug is perfect for the baby to learn to crawl on, while patterned poufs function as casual extra seating and comfy footrests.

Wall covering: Thibault; chairs: Ballard Designs, in custom Essex Velvet Turquoise fabric by Thibault; sofa: Bernhardt; poufs: Target; side tables: HomeGoods


Lindsey likes soft neutrals, such as light gray and oatmeal, and Chris loves the wood on the fireplace surround. “Originally, I wanted to paint the surround gray, but he really loved the wood,” Connor says. So she left it and lightened up the room with soft, neutral colors. “While Lindsey likes monochromatic neutrals, I knew it was important to add some pops of color,” Connor says. “The turquoise keeps it from becoming too masculine or stuffy.”


On the wall behind the sofa, Connor added a long console table to help the space make sense. “Lindsey has great taste and had some wonderful things. I found these X-benches in another room and said, ‘These are the perfect colors; we’re bringing them downstairs,’” Connor says of the cowhide-wrapped pieces, which serve as extra seating. The couple also already had the large brass mirror, which has a strong presence on the wall, adds antiqued metal and reflects the light from the windows across the room.

In addition to incorporating items the family already had, Connor mixed custom and bargain pieces; the lamps are HomeGoods scores, and the table is from Ikea. “This is such a great table; it’s the perfect size,” she says. Though she had originally planned to wrap it in fabric, like she has done for other projects, when she placed it against the wall, it looked just right as it was. The driftwood adds a small coastal touch.


An oatmeal sectional sofa creates within the large room a cozy, more intimate area in which the family can watch TV. “The coffee table is square because the sectional is square,” Connor says. The top is stone, and the legs are reclaimed wood; there are shelves that pull out underneath the top for drinks. The couple invested in a sectional sofa from Bernhardt, and the playful poufs are a Target find.

Also playful are the mixed pillow patterns, which add pops of blues, corals and grays.





Connor noticed that this corner needed something with some height to it, so she plucked this French metal bucket from her clients’ belongings and filled it with firewood and sticks that play off the other natural textures in the room. “Lindsey and Chris have great taste; we just needed to find the right home for some of their things,” Connor says.

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