Sophisticated and Comfortable Living Room

Ashley Pittman is a student designer and the homeowners who've chosen to work with her have just finished school themselves. Leah Chitty, Ali Fillman and Abby Thompson (longtime friends who rent Fillman's parents' house) would seem more like Pittman's friends than clients, but they desperately need her help in their hodgepodge living room. Pittman plans to make the room cohesive and updated by texturing the walls, building symmetrical built-ins by the fireplace, adding canned lighting, new mirrors and a sleek new mantel plus modifying the current floor plan.