Time for a Decorating/Remodeling Thread

[Pea-n-Me]

This seems to be where a lot of my interest lies lately since we're doing renovations and trying to spruce the house up a bit.

I know lots of others are doing the same.

I thought it would be fun to have a place to talk and share ideas, get opinions, post pics, articles of interest, etc.

 

[lovemygoofy]

You are more than welcome to come decorate my family room for me. It needs new paint and wall decor and I cannot make a commitment to a paint color! It was easier picking a husand than a paint color

I've needed to repaint since we moved in and I HAVE to get it done by December. I'm going to just give up and pay someone to paint but I still have to decide on the colors.

I have paint samples everywhere. I just can't decide.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

You are more than welcome to come decorate my family room for me. It needs new paint and wall decor and I cannot make a commitment to a paint color! It was easier picking a husand than a paint color

I've needed to repaint since we moved in and I HAVE to get it done by December. I'm going to just give up and pay someone to paint but I still have to decide on the colors.

I have paint samples everywhere. I just can't decide.

My new neighbor just painted her kitchen twice and still doesn't like the color.

Tell us more and maybe we can help.

http://fleamarket.about.com/od/decoratelikeapro/a/choosingtherightpaintcolor.htm

Are there one or two things in the room you love that you can "pull" some colors from, to start?

 

[lovemygoofy]

I painted my kitchen myself during the blizzard in Febuary. I won't be redoing it anytime soon. I"m not all that in love with that color either but it's interesting at least.

My husband made sure I understand that the family room once it's painted will stay that way. We have super tall rooms, I dont even know how tall but it takes him being on an extension ladder to even think about reaching the tops of the walls not even the ceiling.

My family room is in a L shape with the kitchen. My kitchen is seperated by a half wall. On the other side of the eat in kitchen and then a step down into the family room. We have something like 10 windows in this area and get all the morning light.

I call it the anti hangover room. Right now it's bright *** orange that was here when we moved in. The previous people did it themselves and did it very poorly with uneven strokes on the wall and big orange splotches on the ceiling.

 

[LBAK]

Just finished renovating the kitchen and bath. I painted the kitchen twice to get the color I wanted. Boy the first color sure dried different once it went on the wall.
Now because of the renovation we have to paint the living room dining room and hall and then get our hardwood floors redone.
I love BM historical colors for the house and I'm off today to pick the dining room color.
I'm also on the hunt for fabric for window treatments.
This will be a fun thread, thanks for starting it!

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Tina, what color(s) did you do for the kitchen? What's your furniture like? What do you have on your windows? Floors? What are your favorite colors and tones? Do you have a favorite season? What types of things or places make you happy? (That one sounds silly, but why not consider it when choosing paint and other decor?) When you go in someone else's home, what makes you feel comfortable there? What would your dream family room feel like?

Have you been to places like Pier 1 and Home Goods to find some things you like for your walls? If you find something you like it can inspire your whole color scheme.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Just finished renovating the kitchen and bath. I painted the kitchen twice to get the color I wanted. Boy the first color sure dried different once it went on the wall.
Now because of the renovation we have to paint the living room dining room and hall and then get our hardwood floors redone.
I love BM historical colors for the house and I'm off today to pick the dining room color.
I'm also on the hunt for fabric for window treatments.
This will be a fun thread, thanks for starting it!

Ooh, that sounds nice! I love those historical colors, too. What is the style of your house?

 

[lovemygoofy]

Tina, what color(s) did you do for the kitchen? What's your furniture like? What do you have on your windows? Floors? What are your favorite colors and tones? Do you have a favorite season? What types of things or places make you happy? (That one sounds silly, but why not consider it when choosing paint and other decor?) When you go in someone else's home, what makes you feel comfortable there? What would your dream family room feel like?

Have you been to places like Pier 1 and Home Goods to find some things you like for your walls? If you find something you like it can inspire your whole color scheme.

You are making me feel pressured. Now you know why I hate doing this.

My kitchen is painted Ice Tea and has white everything including the tile and floor. I didn't pick it and we don't own it so I can't change it. The white tile continues through the eat in kitchen. The step down into the family room has carpet and is a very very light brown almost taupe color.

I do have somethings hanging on the walls like framed pictures. We are gettig new furniture this fall as well in here. I'm pretty sure we are going with leather because that's all I hear from a picky man. Because we have dark and huge entertainment center that has to stay and probably getting a dark brown couch, I'm thining a very pale peach color for the walls to bounce off the ice tea color in my kitchen and the old brick color of the fireplace in the family room.

Right now I have white curtains in my family room and a taupe and white in my eat in kitchen. I saw some really nice white and peach striped color curtains with a dark peach lining at Penney's recently. I was thinking that would be a combination with the dark furniture.

We are comfortable people and have comfortable furniture and setting. I don't care if you come in, take your shoes off and curl with feet up in the furniture and your kids run around the room playing. This is where everyone socializes and watches tv and just relaxes. Unless we have alot of company or it's football day and then the men head down stairs or we seperate and go into the front room to visit.

 

[LBAK]

I have a traditional Cape Cod style house. Those historical colors are just very warm and calming to me. I'm about 10 minutes from the ocean so my bathrooms have a New England beachy feel to them. Living room and dining room are traditional. Right now they have a taupe color on the wall called pittsfield buff, looking for new colors. my kitchen is called Wethersfield Moss and I'm happy with that. My kitchen windows are bare right now and with the cooler weather coming in it is starting to drive me crazy. I want that cozy, warm feeling for the cooler weather. I love the greens, soft yellows with a pop of red hues for accents. Now to find the perfect colors....

 

[Pea-n-Me]

My kitchen is painted Ice Tea and has white everything including the tile and floor.

You gotta love men. My DH is sitting with me and he suggests a bold yellow, as in LEMON, to go with your Ice Tea. (Actually, he's pretty good with color but has a warped sense of humor sometimes, lol.)

I like what you chose! As you describe it it sounds like it would all go well together. Then you can pick some fun pillows and other accents to add some more colors for interest - maybe some combination of greens and maybe rusts, etc. I'd like bold here since some of the other colors are soft. Target has some great pillow choices. You're off to a good start here, girl!

ETA in thinking about it I think even some blues and maybe purples might look nice in the pillows, also. Do you ever watch Color Splash (HGTV)? Sometimes David's color blends are a little much for me, but I've learned a lot from watching him.

 

[lovemygoofy]

You gotta love men. My DH is sitting with me and he suggests a bold yellow, as in LEMON, to go with your Ice Tea. (Actually, he's pretty good with color but has a warped sense of humor sometimes, lol.)

I like what you chose! As you describe it it sounds like it would all go well together. Then you can pick some fun pillows and other accents to add some more colors for interest - maybe some combination of greens and maybe rusts, etc. I'd like bold here since some of the other colors are soft. Target has some great pillow choices. You're off to a good start here, girl!

Apparently we share a husband. My husband suggested sugar white because I like sugar in my ice tea

Now that I've talked it out some I can better visualize the colors and the overall room. I will try to take some pictures now of this horrible orange and then the after.

My question is: do you leave the ceilings white? I don't really like painting the whole room the same color and with the tall ceilings I thought the ceiling white would be better. What do you think? Can you just take vacation and come decorate my room and I'll just write the check

 

[Pea-n-Me]

My kitchen windows are bare right now and with the cooler weather coming in it is starting to drive me crazy. I want that cozy, warm feeling for the cooler weather.

I feel your pain - I'm dealing with a whole row of bare windows myself. I'm going to go with a woven shade from this company, check them out. http://www.smithandnoble.com/webapp...wtype=search&gclid=CIXQ9dOUkaQCFZZM5QodQ12NLA

I hope we get to see some pics of your kitchen!

 

[Pea-n-Me]

My question is: do you leave the ceilings white? I don't really like painting the whole room the same color and with the tall ceilings I thought the ceiling white would be better. What do you think?

I'm kind of still in the learning stage myself, but I think each space needs to be looked at on its own merits for what it needs and what would work best, etc. In general, light is reflected down from a white ceiling, but I've seen some trends recently that buck tradition and wind up looking really great. I think in your case, yes, I'd probably stick with white since the space is so large and you'll have a lot of other colors happening as it is, but that's just me and I'm by no means an expert or a decorating guru like some people are. There are so many options.

 

[LBAK]

Pea-N-Me- I love those woven shades. That site has some beautiful treatments.
My next problem for windows is the window I have in my bathroom. It's on the same wall as the bath tub/shower. I'll take any suggestions for a window treatment. Curtains get wet and moldy and have to be changed quite often. I don't want those tacky plastic curtains like my mom used to have.But I need something up there.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

My next problem for windows is the window I have in my bathroom. It's on the same wall as the bath tub/shower. I'll take any suggestions for a window treatment. Curtains get wet and moldy and have to be changed quite often. I don't want those tacky plastic curtains like my mom used to have.But I need something up there.

Ha! Just say No to vinyl curtains! (We had them growing up, too!)

Your house sounds like mine. We have the same thing - window on tub wall. When we moved in, there was already a shower curtain rod on the window side (kind of ingenious, I don't know that I would have thought of it). It's a bit of a PIA, but it beats having a moldy, wet window. The downside is that unless you go with a heavy type shower curtain, it can stick to you when the wind blows through the window so I always buy the really heavy ones. I recently went back to some I tried years ago - they're pricey but they last a long time and you have to wash them fairly frequently (another PIA) but they're called cotton duck or something like that from the Vermont Country Store. (I've wondered about the lighter "hotel type" fabric liners as well.) One solution if you need more space inside the tub is to put a rounded rod on the outside which gives you more room - I haven't gone that far yet. I keep a regular curtain on my window and it stays dry. HTH

 

[LVSWL]

What a great idea for a thread OP! We are in the process of building a beach house and I feel so stressed about what colors to pick. I know the color of my kitchen/dining/living room combo..it will be close to a robin's egg blue/not baby blue and not turquoise. The cabinets are similar to caramel in color. Wood floors. We've been looking at furniture for several months, couches in particular. I'm leaning towards the upholstered white/off white couch from Pottery Barn, and then a couple more comfy chairs in bright patterns that include the blue. I have seen pics of a room similar to ours with the woven shades. They looked great! The contrast between the blue walls/wood floors/white wood trim and cabinets looked good with the woven shades, so that may be the way I go. Any thoughts?

 

[Pea-n-Me]

What a great idea for a thread OP! We are in the process of building a beach house and I feel so stressed about what colors to pick. I know the color of my kitchen/dining/living room combo..it will be close to a robin's egg blue/not baby blue and not turquoise. The cabinets are similar to caramel in color. Wood floors. We've been looking at furniture for several months, couches in particular. I'm leaning towards the upholstered white/off white couch from Pottery Barn, and then a couple more comfy chairs in bright patterns that include the blue. I have seen pics of a room similar to ours with the woven shades. They looked great! The contrast between the blue walls/wood floors/white wood trim and cabinets looked good with the woven shades, so that may be the way I go. Any thoughts?

That sounds awesome! I think Robin's Egg blue will look perfect in that setting - I can picture exactly what you mean. (I'm thinking Easter Eggs!) I have couches like you're describing, but they're the Crate and Barrel slipcovered white. My house is kind of beachy, too.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Tina, I left some additional thoughts in post #10.

 

[LVSWL]

That sounds awesome! I think Robin's Egg blue will look perfect in that setting - I can picture exactly what you mean. (I'm thinking Easter Eggs!) I have couches like you're describing, but they're the Crate and Barrel slipcovered white. My house is kind of beachy, too.

Easter egg blue is a great name for it! I'm a little worried about the couches, but my kids are 16 & 19 so hopefully they won't get too much spilled on them. I want it to be beachy/casual/restful, but not too much "cutesy beach" stuff, more cottage like. Thanks for the vote of confidence!

 

[LVSWL]

I'm kind of still in the learning stage myself, but I think each space needs to be looked at on its own merits for what it needs and what would work best, etc. In general, light is reflected down from a white ceiling, but I've seen some trends recently that buck tradition and wind up looking really great. I think in your case, yes, I'd probably stick with white since the space is so large and you'll have a lot of other colors happening as it is, but that's just me and I'm by no means an expert or a decorating guru like some people are. There are so many options.

I agree about the white ceiling. One option, is if you have crown molding around the top of the walls, then it looks kind of cool to use a much lighter shade of the wall cover on the ceiling.
In my master, I plan to use a deeper hue of the blue in the living room..the master is just off of that room (reverse floor plan at beach) and I'm thinking about painting the ceiling a light gold..not tan. The molding will separate it. The master bath will have neutral tile/tan/off white with a double row of beach glass in the shower and the walls the lightest shade of the robin's egg blue. The wall paint picks up the beach tiles. We did this in our master here and LOVE it! It's like a spa.