...as for the title, a lot see dark walls as gloomy. I don't!! But...
Don't laugh...this is serious business here. lol [sorry, I couldn't help myself!!] When decorating our home, the living room, dining room, and kitchen is 98% all one room. It's an open area from the front door to the back, kitchen garage, door. With a sunken living room floor. Once you step up into the dining room from the living room, the kitchen is open from the ceiling down half way with scrolled woodwork and counter tops. These days, at least I think...there is just too much white!! White walls everywhere you look; hospital rooms, lobbies in hotels, motel rooms, restaurants to an extent, mall interior, book stores,...white, white everywhere. What happened to color? Expressing yourself with pastel or a bold designer color? Most newer homes are all white interior. That gets to be a bit sterile looking all the time...in our house in Tucson before moving to Texas, the entire house was white...white walls, white doors, white appliances...boring. It didn't take me long to want colored walls. So, I vowed to have the walls painted colors. Sure, one color gets to be a bit old and faded after a while...that's when change is needed. But having the kitchen open from the dining room created a challenge. I didn't want blue in the kitchen. When trying to figure out how to change the wall color in the kitchen and make the one wall that is part of the dining room & kitchen work together well enough...how to do it? Bud suggested we put a strip of moulding from the floor to the ceiling...separating the two rooms. That worked. The floor tiles are brown and gold-fleck like....and now here comes the 'funny' part....wait for it, wait for it...
Don't laugh...this is serious business here. lol [sorry, I couldn't help myself!!] When decorating our home, the living room, dining room, and kitchen is 98% all one room. It's an open area from the front door to the back, kitchen garage, door. With a sunken living room floor. Once you step up into the dining room from the living room, the kitchen is open from the ceiling down half way with scrolled woodwork and counter tops. These days, at least I think...there is just too much white!! White walls everywhere you look; hospital rooms, lobbies in hotels, motel rooms, restaurants to an extent, mall interior, book stores,...white, white everywhere. What happened to color? Expressing yourself with pastel or a bold designer color? Most newer homes are all white interior. That gets to be a bit sterile looking all the time...in our house in Tucson before moving to Texas, the entire house was white...white walls, white doors, white appliances...boring. It didn't take me long to want colored walls. So, I vowed to have the walls painted colors. Sure, one color gets to be a bit old and faded after a while...that's when change is needed. But having the kitchen open from the dining room created a challenge. I didn't want blue in the kitchen. When trying to figure out how to change the wall color in the kitchen and make the one wall that is part of the dining room & kitchen work together well enough...how to do it? Bud suggested we put a strip of moulding from the floor to the ceiling...separating the two rooms. That worked. The floor tiles are brown and gold-fleck like....and now here comes the 'funny' part....wait for it, wait for it...
Choosing a color that would accent the blue and still match the flooring AND not show the cat food splatterings on the wall!!! The name of the paint color is Pumpernickle...but I call it terra cotta. It's a good contrast of the "Printer's Ink Blue" paint color in the adjoining dining room. [By the way...who thinks up these paint colors anyway?]
I'll show you before and after --the images are very large, so, here they're tiny...use the lightbox feature to get 'em larger if you wish, by clicking on them...
...looking through the wooded open area that separates the kitchen from the dining room [see first before/after images of the kitchen color change], you can see the dining room -which can be seen through the living room archway...
The living room, dining room, hallway and kitchen, done!! Now, moving on to the spare bedroom. It's debatable what color. I want one...Bud prefers another. Arguments? Ya, probably. At least we don't have to try and match the cats' kibbles and bits colors.
...oh, and I just finished making a new keyring hanger...I took an oval frame, wrapped it in jute, decorated it with artificial cattails, added some shells from my collection, and a ceramic seagull. On the backside, I glued a white picket beach fence...
